


Comparative Techniques in Saving the World

by clandestineClairvoyant



Category: Assassin's Creed, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Gen, HUGE SPOILERS, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Spoilers, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-15 18:13:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 35,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2238612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clandestineClairvoyant/pseuds/clandestineClairvoyant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of Assassins Creed 3, and after dealing with the aftermath, Desmond finds himself in New York, probably not keeping as low of a profile as he should be.</p><p>((Really more of a long series of drabbles at this point,  but very cathartic none the less. Started editing it for grammatical errors/formatting Dec/14/2015. Thanks for reading everybody! :) ))</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> OK so huge spoilers.  
> ~~~~~~~~~~~  
> After beating AC3, I found myself speculating how they would bring Desmond back into the series, since I was in HEAVY denial. I came up with the idea of this headcanon that Desmond would live, but probably be pretty bad off, and how he'd probably end up some ragged hobo assassin-for-hire in new york, finally clear of the Assassin/Templar skirmishing when everyone assumes he's dead.  
> AND THEN that led to the thought of how cool it would be if Hawkeye or Black Widow met him, fellow assassins and all. And that led to the thought of what Desmond would be like in the marvel universe. A shadowy figure similar to Daredevil or Spiderman, with the personality, memories, and skills of a whole lineage of Assassins at his disposal.  
> And then I wanted him to face off against each Avenger one at a time and see what happened.

The room is cold, and his shoes have been taken away. His toes are black with dirt from the hallways they’d brought him through, hooded and cuffed with his elbows drawn all the way behind his back and legs locked together with something that felt like death-row cuffs.

He’d also lost privilege of his jacket and all of his weapons, leaving him chilled in the cold air conditioned interview room, and feeling strangely vulnerable, even without the added cuffs and chains.

It’s a typical interrogation room; Metal desk and chairs all bolted to the floor, gray concrete and steel, with one long mirror on the wall to Desmond’s right. The hall they’d brought him through after flying in had felt echoing, and he though he’d heard filing cabinets being opened, the hum of conversation and the occasional heavy and clattering sound of heavy combat equipment. Military, it sounded like.

 

They’d taken his hood off, but it didn’t tell him much he couldn’t already know with it on.

 

In the glow of his Eagle-vision, Desmond could see some red shapes on the other side of the one-way glass, washed out to slightly purple with the distance as well as the indigo blankness of the reflective surface, and he tracked their faces with narrowed eyes, hoping desperately to read what they’re saying. He could at least find out where they’ve taken him.  
From the gentle vibrations passing into his bare feet, he figured they were on a boat of some sort.

 

When this doesn’t yield any results besides a piercing headache, he looked closer at his cuffs, rattling them experimentally.

 

They were wide, made of a stiff type of leather, and padded on the inside to prevent chafing, as well as extending with bands to cross over and keep his palms pressed together, limiting the motion of his fingers and wrists.

They had, however, given him a cup of the worst coffee he’d ever drunk in his life.

_‘Ah, how the authorities grow wiser.’_ Said a fond voice in his head. Desmond bit back a snort. Ezio. _‘Back in my day they would have thrown you in a dungeon with a window not ten feet above your head. And given you a hot meal before the shifts changed and you climbed out.’_ The memory is a nostalgic one, and a warm feeling completely at odds with Desmond’s own tightly clenched fear spreads in his chest. Phantom wistfulness.

_‘Thanks for the history lesson. But if you’re not going to offer a way out, then pipe down and stop distracting me.’ _Desmond grit back, ribs twinging, as he pulled experimentally on the chain bolted under the table. It rattled, but didn’t give.__

__

__There hadn’t been anyone in for hours. Thankfully, he didn’t particularly have to go to the bathroom, or he would’ve been in trouble after hour four. He was thirsty, ninety percent sure that Hawk guy cracked a rib, and nursing a headache and a loose tooth._ _

__

__Which is why he’s not expecting it when the door opens._ _

__

__Desmond started, glaring slightly and squaring his shoulders._ _

__The government spook that sidles in is average height, has slightly thinning hair, and a tightly pressed mouth with lines around it that spoke of a stressful job. His suit was average, carefully cultivated plain-ness that just _screams_ government issue. The difference between this man and the sleek, anaerobic appearance of Abstergo goons is so profound that he almost sighs in relief._ _

__But Desmond could see the bulge of a gun holster, and at least two knives in the gentle blue glow of his eagle vision. Still not out of the woods, even if the likelihood of his brains getting scrambled again just dropped by- Well. Hopefully by a lot._ _

__

__A small device on the man’s belt beeped, but the suit ignored it as he sat down, putting a file down on the table in front of him._ _

__

__They sat in silence a few moments, him reading through the file and letting Desmond stew, and Desmond shivering miserably and sullenly with bare feet. ( _‘Amateur tactics.’_ Altair sniffed disapprovingly, and Desmond mentally rolled his eyes.)_ _

__The hum in his feet continued, unabated. Either they were parked right under the generator, or there was something he didn’t know about._ _

__

__“So, Desmond Miles.” The suit started out suddenly, shutting the file and putting his hands on the table. They spread out easily, comfortably. Like they were sitting down at a board meeting and Desmond was being particularly disappointing this last quarter._ _

__Desmond stared back blankly._ _

__“And you are?” Desmond was getting the surreal feeling he was stuck in a Jason Bourne movie. But with more superheroes. And a slightly more competent secret agency._ _

__“Phil Coulson. I’m with-“_ _

__Black Briar?_ _

__“- the Strategic Homeland Intervention and Logistics Division.”_ _

__Desmond stared at him incredulously. Something clicked. He played dumb. “Aren’t you the guys that handled that alien thing?”_ _

__Coulson’s mouth twitched briefly. “We have a very broad sense of ‘homeland.”_ _

__Desmond gave him a strange look, but didn’t push it. “Am I under arrest?” He asked, rattling the cuffs pointedly. Coulson didn’t seem in a rush, opening the file he had on the desk to peer at it, like Desmond had seen Shaun look at Entertainment Weekly. Avidly, and with no real concern about whom may be talking to him at the moment._ _

__“Let’s not use such ugly words quite so soon.” Coulson admonished, licking, actually _licking_ his thumb, and flipping through Desmond’s file._ _

__

___‘I can’t look- I’m going to keep watch from your sense of self-preservation, call me if you need me- Since I know you sure as shit won’t find me.’_ Clay offered in his head, sounding tense, but also darkly resigned. Desmond brushed the voice away irritably with a twitch of his head, frowning._ _

__

__“If I’m not under arrest, then can I at least know why you’re interested in me? And why I’m cuffed to this table?”_ _

__“I don’t know Mister Miles, why would we be interested in you?”_ _

__“I’m a bartender, and I’ve been backpacking for the past three years.” Desmond stubbornly stuck to his story, trying to project a stubborn-hippie puzzlement. If he knew his friends at all, there would at least be some form of rescue attempt, and the shallower the hole he dug himself, the better. “I climbed that building on a dare from my friend Shaun, just call him-“_ _

__“Please cut the bullshit Mister Miles.” Coulson cut him off, not looking particularly upset, and Desmond trailed off sullenly, sinking lower in his chair._ _

__He waited, and when it was apparent that Desmond wasn’t going to cut him off, tosses a picture from the file in front of Desmond. it almost slides off, until he stops it with a stained and dirty fingernail, leaving a smudge on the glossy white edge._ _

__Blown up and slightly pixelated, it’s of an Apple, silver and dimly glowing in a background of dust and rubble. There are fingers clenched around it, blood snaking from under one nail, but the features aren’t very distinguishable in the low resolution._ _

__

__Desmond has the sinking suspicion he’d find it familiar though._ _

__

__“What we, Mister Miles, would like to know, is how you worked this device, and how you managed to evade the efforts of our elite Avengers unit for over a year.”_ _

__

__#####_ _

__

__Desmond hadn’t died._ _

__It surprised him probably more than it surprised the Abstergo scientists he opened his eyes to._ _

__They reared back from where they were leaning over him, one fumbling for his radio, and the other putting out what looked like a tazer. For a moment he wanted to cry- he was dead, and si afterlife was going to be an eternity of-_ _

__But he hurt too much to be dead._ _

___His head was splitting, but he had the presence of mind to lift one arm-  
 _oh god the pain holy shit is my arm still there_  
-and knife one scientist right in the neck._

__There was a sound like someone trying to speak through a tube made of punctured meat, as the heavy and suddenly much wetter weight of a scientist in a hazmat suit pinned him to the ground. He might have blacked out again from the pain._ _

__

__When he woke up again, the second scientist was dead, and he was standing._ _

__

__His run from the caves was a blur. There were trucks parked around the clearing, engines rumbling, and Templars crawling everywhere. He remembered the sun seeming unusually bright, his eyes stinging and head pounding so much he threw up twice on his way out of the cave, hands spasming against dirt as he made his slow, fumbling way up the same incline he’d slid down effortlessly so many times before._ _

___Ok,_ He spat into the dust when his stomach finished ejecting a mix of bile and blood, interspersed with probably the five ibuprofen and three shots of cheap liquor he’d had for dinner last night. He wiped his mouth with a shaking and bloody hand, before staggering back to his feet to climb the last stretch between him and daylight. _That’s disgusting. And probably not a good sign.__ _

__Someone yelled at him to stop as he broke out into open air- It sounded like Italian, and for some reason he remembered blood running warm over his hands by the side of a canal, candlelight obscuring him and his victim into just another pair of shadows in the dark- But instead of renaissance Italy, he finds himself standing in the clearing with more blood pooling under his feet, leaking from a guard in kevlar. He’d done it without making the conscious decision to defend himself._ _

__A voice in his head whispered a litany of _run run run get out of here_ and he does, staggering slightly as he heard alarmed shouts, and a couple of guns go off, all shooting wide, thankfully._ _

__

__He barely made it to the tree line._ _

__And it was that easy._ _

__

__The woods are dark, the trees casting it into night time far before the rest of the world has even put the pot-roast in the oven, so he had no problem losing Abstergo in the trees, even in the confused, painful condition he was in._ _

__Especially with the expertise of three assassins behind him, still freshly seated in his brain and seeming unnervingly easy to pin point and pluck out. The skills seem to come easier to him than they did before, but he contributed it to probably getting his brain fried._ _

__He must have been out for hours, because it used to be afternoon when he went into the temple. Plenty of time for Shaun and Rebecca and… Everyone else, to get away._ _

__

__He lost motor function twice, in the hours he spends trying to follow the trees north, to where he knows a highway runs just off the edge of the nature preserve the caves were recessed into. Turin is a wide, green county, and he threw up in two bushes on his way; nothing but painful acid coming up, combined with a loss of vision and a shaking in his hands that refuses to stop even when he shoves them in his arm pits._ _

__

__A bird sung in the distance while the shaking winds to a halt, and he reached a shaky hand up to wipe blood off of his lip. It left a metallic taste in his mouth. _Is this what a seizure is?_ He blinked, and shuts his eyes briefly against the splitting ache in his head. _Sure fucking feels like it.__ _

___Okay. I’m alive. _He pushed himself to his feet, the sense of danger behind him pushing him on even if he just wants to lay down. He’s so _tired.___ _ _

____He’s probably going to drop dead in a couple of miles, but he decided to ignore the reality. Pushed the thought back. Even if he’ll probably never be free of this goddamn rat race of a war, he can at least make it harder for Abstergo to recover his body._ _ _ _

_____‘Haha, that’s the spirit. Make them trip over your dead corpse, really show the bastards.’_ _ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Desmond put a hand to his head, the increase in pain from both his horribly burnt hand, and his splitting head freezing him on the spot. That was a very detailed sentence. That came from nowhere near his own thought process._ _ _ _

____What the fuck happened to his head._ _ _ _

_____’Who’s… this?’_ He asks the- Voice in his head? There’s no small amount of hysteria in the question. Oh god. They fried his brain. He figured this was coming, but maybe not for a while, _I mean,_ no doubt he’s stuffed full of tumors from whatever the fuck they were putting him through in that Animus-_ _ _ _

_____‘Calm down hotshot. It’s me.’_ _ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Desmond was incredulous for a good thirty seconds._ _ _ _

_____Clay?_ _ _ _ _

_____‘That’s right. Guess there was still a little bit of me left in the Animus.’_ The now-familiar voice answered ruefully, and Desmond felt something similar to a mental shrug._ _ _ _

____His hands started shaking again, and he’s about 70 percent sure wasn’t to do with brain damage this time._ _ _ _

_____Christ. I’m going to drop dead from cancer, aren’t I?_ _ _ _ _

_____‘Hey, hey, hey! Let’s keep it positive here!’_ Clay pushed, and Desmond groaned out loud, cradling his injured hand against his chest, and gripping his hair tight with the other. _‘At least I’m not alone in here, right?’__ _ _ _

____Desmond grew suspicious._ _ _ _

____Also nauseous. But mostly suspicious._ _ _ _

____“What do you mean?” He says this out loud, barely a crack of a whisper passing through his throat. It was completely ravaged, and clicked when he swallowed. not that he was swallowing much, with his throat so dry,_ _ _ _

____There was a mental shuffling of feet._ _ _ _

_____’Well…. I mean, I wasn’t the only one in the Animus, now was I?’_ _ _ _ _

____ _ _

____And that’s how Desmond finds out he now has three master assassins and an asshole in his head._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____#####_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____He reached the road the next day, but there was nobody at the meet up spot._ _ _ _

____Just an oil stain on the pavement, and a few bootprints, size six._ _ _ _

____Rebecca and Shaun must have taken off when they assumed (rightfully) that Desmond was dead._ _ _ _

_____‘Can’t blame them, right? I mean, phew. Take a look at that arm.’_ _ _ _ _

____Desmond had been avoiding looking at his hand, but he winced in agreement._ _ _ _

____It could be worse. He still had a range of movement in his fingers, although the pain it had caused him to test mobility had left him sweating and panting, trying not to scream. The skin was raw and red, with black, zig-zagging lines running all the way up to almost his elbow, like circuitry, or lightning._ _ _ _

____The brace had come off messily, taking some skin with it, but he hadn’t made too much noise with a stick clamped in his teeth. His shirt had been sacrificed for bandages, and it was wrapped tightly and dryly, using expertise from four different generations of wound tending._ _ _ _

____Altair sneered, and claimed to _’only need one anyway.’_ Otherwise, where would you hold the sword?_ _ _ _

____There was a stirring of interest in the part of his brain he’d started to designate as ‘foreign’, but he squashed it down before Ezio could speak. He was saving the freak out for later. Altair was squashed into silence as well, and the effort made him dizzy._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____It was odd, Desmond thought, as he surveyed the road through the trees. When he explored the new space in his brain, he found things he never remembered learning._ _ _ _

____Like different languages, or astronomy, or even how to put someone in a sleeper hold. But his brain was so full, it was like other things were being pushed out. His head hadn’t eased it’s throbbing, and he was still getting fine tremors in his hands that made it hard for him to grasp anything, even given his bum hand._ _ _ _

____Hopefully it would get better, but that still wasn’t the most pressing problem._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____He couldn’t remember his tenth birthday, and it scared him shitless._ _ _ _

____ _ _

_____‘Who needs a tenth birthday, when you have me to chat with?’_ Came the smug reply._ _ _ _

_____Stop trying to make me feel better._ _ _ _ _

____‘ _Only when it starts working.’__ _ _ _

_____Just… Just shut up, and let me think! And keep the others quiet too._ _ _ _ _

_____‘Alright. But I’m just going to tell you, they’re getting chatty.’_ _ _ _ _

____ _ _

____It was weird having conversations in your head that you’re not privy to._ _ _ _

____Desmond moved for the road, injured arm in his jacket pocket, and stuck his thumb out.  
The birds sang over the roar of tires on the interstate, and he wondered in a very familiar way that made him feel nothing more than sixteen again, what he was going to do next._ _ _ _


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ok so, I'm slow at updating this thing, mainly because I'm doing the irresponsible thing and winging it. I have a half hearted plot worked out, but bear with me. The dates in the Avengers cinematic universe are all over the place, and for the love of me I cannot find any sort of definitive reference. If anybody knows of any, it would be greatly appreciated.  
> So I'm going to go ahead and place the invasion in March 2013. Ironically, on Desmond's birthday. The events of AC 3 happened on 21 December 2012. I realize the Invasion supposedly took place in 2012, the same year Avengers came out, but that sucks so I'm ignoring it.
> 
> In other news, no one will ever truly know the depth of my love for Clay Kaczmarek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Making it in the Big Apple, take 2.
> 
> Spoilers! I don't know how many warnings I've put on this thing by now, but seriously.  
>  _spoilers_
> 
> For everyone not in the know, Clay Kaczmarek is Subject 16, the Assassin who Desmond's dad sent in to infiltrate the Animus project, but got in too deep in his ancestors memories, went crazy, became a computer program, and killed himself.  
> Only to live on as a computer program, and save Desmond's life.  
> So, obviously his genetic memories still floating around in the Animus would be imprinted. I mean, he left himself EVERYWHERE.

New York is not how he expects.

Desmond’s expecting mass panic, maybe a little bit of looting. The world just narrowly escaped disaster. By a-  
Ha  
-hand. If he’s any judge.  
But listening to the car radios on the way there had revealed nothing but this years Top 40, and how he can win tickets to this years _‘XXX-Travaganza’._  
The spikes in solar radiation are nothing but a small blip on the social calendar, news reports blaring from storefront windows claiming that they’re ‘minor inconveniences to our broadcasting schedule’, and ‘cellular coverage will be reduced by 70 percent for the next week’.

He saves the world, and hardly anyone even notices it was in danger.

 _‘Besides the Templars.’_ Altair comments wryly, and Desmond immediately flinches.  
The spike of pain it causes leaves Desmond grabbing for the spot on his forehead right above his eyebrow. His vision flashes blue for a moment, before evening out.

There’s a guilty silence.  
This had been a common occurrence for the past twelve or so hours.

_Just…. Be quiet._

He’s not sure what made him come back to New York City. If he’d been smart, he would’ve gone the other way, towards Philly. Or Virginia. Miami.  
But New York. This is a place he feels like he could get lost in. Nobody gives him a second look in his hoody, arm shoved deep in his pockets, swaddled in the remains of someone’s under shirt he’d nabbed. He’s just another crazy on the streets, talking to himself and grabbing for his head pains.  
It’s what brought him here nine years ago, and it’s what draws him back. Like a migrating bird.

_‘Okay, okay. Enough with the bird analogies. What’s the plan? Or are you just going to keep bumming rides until you find the one taxi in New York with a Templar in it?’_

Desmond winces, but the pain is gentle this time. More of a tension.

_I’m going to find somewhere to sleep this off. And after that, I need to find something to eat._

He makes his way east.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After the first night in an alley, Desmond resolves to at least get enough money together for a motel room.

It’s late December, and the concrete is hard and unforgiving, even after he piles some cardboard boxes together. He chose a theatre to bum behind mainly because it wouldn’t smell too bad, and there was less of a likelihood of him being harassed.

It’s cold, but Desmond’s been having worse since he was twelve. Sleeping isn’t much of a problem.

The seizures had eased up into an occasional hand spasm, his muscles weak and head splitting. The tremor made it hard for him to do anything, but he stubbornly hung onto the hope that it would ease up, same as the nausea and migraines did.  
So, with nothing else to do, Desmond finds a comfy spot behind a recycling bin, and for a few hours, he’s blissfully unconscious.

When he wakes up, someone’s leaning over him.

For a split second, Desmond’s so confused he thinks he’s back in the cave, and the terror wrenches his hand up and into the side of the person’s head, sending them sprawling with an indignant shout, and Desmond scrambling backwards.

His hand explodes into pain, and he immediately cradles it to his chest, panting and shaking as the homeless guy picks himself up, swearing.

He’s grateful he wasn’t wearing a hidden blade this time.

“I was just checking if you were dead, asshole!”

“More like if I had anything in my wallet you fucking bum!” Desmond gets over his shakes long enough to peg a bottle the guys way, and he moves on fast, gathering his long overcoat around him in a comically shuffling gesture, leaving Desmond alone with his thoughts.  
As crowded as they were.

_‘A beautiful start to a beautiful day, eh mio fratello?’_

Yeah. Peachy.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The quest for money starts with cleaning up the best he can. His clothes are filthy, the makeshift bandage around his hand pink with blood, and some kind of clear, oozing discharge. It’s mostly tingly for now, the burning pain turning into a more manageable throb. Either it was getting better, or he was losing feeling in it. He wasn’t sure which it was, or which would be better to hope for. 

The hoody looks like, surprise, he’d been rolling around on a cave floor, been electrocuted by alien technology, and had then proceeded to have multiple seizures in the woods, beside a stream, and in two separate strangers cars.

The lady in the last car had tried to call an ambulance, but he’d recovered enough to snatch her phone and throw it out the window.

Walking the rest of the way had been cake compared to explaining himself to authorities.

Desmond rinses the hoody the best he can in the early morning, with a hose he finds out behind a deli in midtown, and beats the worst of the stains out with a piece of aluminum siding and a brick. He sets it to dry over somebodies central heating unit, and continues his _dazzling_ dumpster diving quest behind the scenes of Manhattan, by conjuring:  
1: Slightly used egg mcmuffin;  
2: Some slightly more suitable bandaging in the form of someone’s pretty much clean tube socks, that join his hoody on the heating unit after a thorough dousing;  
3; A blood drive t-shirt from 1982 that he figures practically counts as norm-core;  
And the _best_ find of all, 4: A bottle of aspirin that has two pills left in it.  
By the time he finds all of his treasures, and gets something in his stomach besides leaves and berries, the hoody is wearably damp, and the tube socks about dry.

Some careful tearing and binding, and his hand is covered, and clean as it’s going to get on such short notice. All in all, much better than this time yesterday. He’d probably been stabbing a Templar in the neck around then.

 _‘Ah, yes. Now we’re living like kings.’_ Altair comments drily.

His jacket is still pretty dirty, but at least it doesn’t have crusted vomit on the sleeve, and he’s deeply enjoying the benefits of a reversible. The inside is gray, but he’s not complaining. White was not doing him any favors in the grand scheme of things. And the red accents that pass for lining aren’t too drabby.

Prepared to face the day, he double checks his remaining hidden blade, the soft snick and release, the oiled leather, the buckles holding it against his arm. With the sleeve pulled down, it looks mostly like he has some sort of large, ornamental gauntlet, or bracer on, rather than a hidden weapon. He wouldn’t be passing any metal detector tests, but at least if the Templars came looking for him, they’d get a fight.

There’s a skeptical feeling behind this thought.

He’s not going to be accepting any drinks from strangers now, _thanks Connor._

Reassured, he leaves the dark early morning dimness of the alley, and heads out onto the almost empty streets. 

He pulls his hood up, and starts looking.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Desmond still has a few contacts he knows he hasn’t burned through in the past four months. Not quite, ‘a guy that knows a guy’, but pretty similar in idea.

Part of his training as a kid had been number memorization; not exactly a glamorous skill, but something that had impressed girls at the bar, and came in handy when he went through phones faster than most people went through underwear. Literally. From the age of 23, when he finally got a phone, to before getting snatched, he probably went through at least 30 phones. Mostly burners. Some false accounts.  
Long story short, it was easier for him to memorize his address book than to get it transferred to every new phone.

It reminds him of being a young kid again, traveling through South Dakota, hungry, scared, but head strong, and absolutely soaring with his independence. His training had been invaluable then too, and he’s grateful that he hadn’t let the skills gone to seed.

Not to mention, everything seems almost scarily easy now.

The streets fill up fast as he wanders aimlessly, studying some storefronts, and letting the crowd carry him around Midtown, slowly making his way towards Lower Manhattan.

Someone on the street lights up in gold as he watches, and he doesn’t even flinch, accepting the hint for what it is, and seamlessly changing course to follow.  
She’s got her hands full, and big, deep pockets.

_‘Perfect.’_

Without even thinking about it, he bumps into the woman, grabbing her arm, and laughing, saying something vaguely in Italian in apology. His hand slips into her pocket about as smoothly as he would slip it into his own, disarming the casual observer into just thinking he’s doing something normal, but the angle wrong enough where his mark can’t pick up where his hand actually went.  
Keeping the movement easy and casual was key. People didn’t pay attention to the hands, always more drawn by the face and shoulders. 

He comes up with one of those shiny new Stark-phones, a Hello Kitty bobble hanging from it, and a hard shove from the woman sends Desmond on his way, babbling disarmingly in Italian and blushing.  
She glares at him suspiciously and he’s pretty sure she’s counting her shopping bags as he turns the corner.  
As soon as he’s out of sight, he lifts up his hood and continues on his way, walking slowly, but also taking quite a few turns to lose any followers.

The whole thing felt very automatic. Practiced, almost.  
Desmond's bothered by it, almost. It takes a couple moments fiddling with the phone to place why. He’d picked pockets before, but never quite like that. That was something Ezio did, he realizes, about the same time he feels smugness emanating from the older Assassin. The surprise almost stops him. For the first time since before he even touched the First Civilization machine, possibly since he stepped out of the Animus, his head doesn’t hurt quite so bad.

The voices don’t comment on this.

Desmond sends a text to an old acquaintance, someone he knows the Templars can’t know about. The guy hadn’t been in his phone for the last five contacts lists, and even then only under a pseudonym. Most of the accounts in his contacts of the ‘unofficial’ sort, of which there had been a decreasing amount as time went on, had led to voicemails, or drop box accounts, paid for in cash by the other party. A lot of those type of people had been even more paranoid than he was, always leading him on roundabout ways of contacting them that had felt ridiculously clandestine and over-the-top.

Which, in retrospect, made him feel a little embarrassed.

_‘What sort of work will this… Client have for us?’_ Asks someone haltingly, Desmond unable to place who it is at the moment, slightly distracted. Maybe Connor.

_Work. The kind of work someone does when they can’t send in a home address, and need cash fast._

It’s what he’s resorted to when he was younger. Not something he’s proud of, but it’s helped him get on his feet, and into a better job. The payoff had been well enough, but the risks of getting caught by the law, or noticed by Templar or Assassin forces had been too great to keep it up for long.

He’d given it up after one too close of a call with a patrol car. He’d been eighteen, and the thought of going to jail had scared the ambition right out of him.

This time, Desmond’s going to be a little more careful.

 _‘My kind of work.’_ Clay puts in smugly, and Desmond sighs.

_How many of you are in there anyway?_

Desmond has a horrifying thought.

Haytham’s _not in there, is he???_

_‘Relax, just four. I think the people who’s memory you spent the most time in. As well as me. Because I’m just….’_ Desmond get’s the impression of savage triumph. _‘Tenacious._ That was an understatement. _But no, our favorite Templar isn’t in here. At least,’_ Clay sounds hesitant. _’I don’t_ think _he’s in here. If he is, he’s hidden himself real well. I can see pretty much everywhere!’_

 _Because you’re_ snooping.

Desmond presses down a growing irritation, as well as the ache in his head that is starting to become a constant companion any time he talks with his... Houseguests. It feels almost like stretching a muscle he hasn't really used before. Only, it's made of fucking glass, and connected to his face.

 _‘Hey, your fifth grade soccer game isn’t_ that _titillating.’_ Clay replies indignantly.

Desmond turns his attention to his phone, ignoring Clay’s increasingly incoherent trips down memory lane ( _his_ memory lane, thank you very much), wiping a trickle of blood out from under his nose. It's just a tiny bit, much better than yesterday. His sleeve is starting to get stained again, but he has half an egg mcmuffin in him. That has iron in it, right?

He should _really_ get himself looked at.

But first, money.

A text reply appears on the phone with a small musical chime. Some anime theme? He's too relieved to get such a fast answer to worry about it.

_‘back in town eh?? u up for a job in HK? hella quick. all I have 4 u rite now’_

_‘This person writes like an imbecile. Ask him how his mother let him live past the cradle.’_ Altair interrupts, and Desmond shakes his head in disbelief.

_It’s just a modern affect. People use it to convey- you know what, no. You have my memories, you can figure it out._

_‘I still do not see the point. It’s like you forgot half of your alphabet and made the rest up. Does language have no sanctity anymore?’_  
Just to spite him, Desmond replies, _‘sure whatever u got. need cash fast’_

Phone chime.

_**‘how** fast? ;0  <3 ‘_

Desmond rolls his eyes.

_‘not that fast’_

_‘ :’( ‘_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, critique, suggestions and comments welcome. Does anyone else feel like it's moving too fast? Too slow? I wouldn't know, I've been looking at it too long.  
> And don't worry, the Avengers canon will be showing up soon! Not too soon, but.... Soon.  
> Remember, there's a whole alien invasion to take care of.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lame title, I know, I couldn't resist. This thing is ending up much longer than I thought it would be, but I don't mind so much since it's a fun side project.  
> Anybody else feel like the Eagle Vision was seriously under stated by everyone else in the game? Like, wow Desmond, you can see through walls and time, big whoop, now throw me into this sewage so I can grab a ladder.  
> Chapter is much improved by listening to Black Widow by Lalo Shifrin, or Ten Cent Pistol by Black keys.

Almost all of downtown Manhattan is owned by Stark Industries, and has been since the late nineties, early 2000’s. Point in fact, the theater Desmond had slept behind last night was owned by a subset of Stark Industries. As well as one of his old housing complexes, and half of the working satellites currently overhead.

Really, it wasn’t surprising that this job was in a Stark Industries complex.

What _was_ surprising was who got there before him.  
But, later.

 

Desmond had retrieved the folder with all of the info he needed at one of his old PO boxes, paid for in advance for about five years, and under about five different aliases. It was pretty safe to assume nobody knew about it, and sure enough, the only trouble he faced was getting in the door of the mail office.

Jesus, like that place had any standards of dress before, and now they’re giving him flak about a little bit of blood on the floor when he sneezed.

_Fascists._ Connor sniffs irritably, and Desmond ignores it to flip through the folder, sipping the cheapest tea on a Starbucks menu. Starbucks was a great place to stay. There’s hundreds of them, lots of foot traffic, free wifi, and also they have pretty decent hot drinks and accessible running water.  
The tea and nice seat had only cost him the change in his pocket. Well. _Someone’s_ pocket.

The barista calls out an order, and someone talks loudly on their phone one seat over, leaving Desmond free to chat with the entourage in his brain without drawing any attention.

_’What is this job? Corporate sabotage?’_ It was creepy how they could just look over his mental shoulder like that. _I don’t like it.’_ Ezio criticized, radiating disapproval. _What right have we to meddle in the affairs of private business men?_

 _I **love** it! Yeah! Stick it to the man!_ Clay crowed, and Desmond rubbed his temple wearily. With his good hand.

It’s an easy job, and he has no other options for money to get what he needs. And what he _needs_ is medicine. Antibiotics. Probably anti-convulsants. What’s he going to do? Any job he applies for will have his name on it, and he left a hell of a mess behind him in that cave in Turin.  
In the folder was a sleek little flashdrive, which he was supposed to bring to a moderately guarded Stark Industries office and warehouse, and use to download the contents of the foreman’s desktop. The only reason he was doing this job, and no one else, is his contact had pulled a few strings for him. Martin.

Otherwise it was a milk run. A suspiciously well-paid milk run. But his contact assured him that it was just for insurance, and it was an easy in and out job. Some security guards, a couple of cameras, and some strict security measures easily by-passed by someone with his climbing skills.

 _’Embracing your heritage, hm?’_ Altair sounded _entirely_ too smug for Desmond’s taste. _Of course, we will be helping you._

Desmond’s not reassured.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The building was about forty floors high, about the third busiest Stark building in New York next to the actual Stark Tower, also footing some traffic from two different banks, and a law firm.

It had hit night, and then some past, before Desmond had felt safe enough to hit up a few of his other meager contacts for some supplies, banking on the 10 thousand dollar pay check when he was done to pay them back.  
After all, if he didn’t pull it off, he’d probably starve to death, or seize to death, or probably just fall to his death from the top of one of the ugliest buildings in Manhattan he’s ever had the pleasure to lay eyes on. He’d never have to worry about paying them back.  
Not to mention, Martin liked him, but he didn’t like him _that_ much.  
He’d probably get whacked by a five dollar drive by if he didn’t come through. Or knifed in the alley while he slept.

_Jesus, easy sunshine. Don’t get carried away with the glass half full shit there.’_

He’d been concerned about not having any blueprints to work off, as well as no access to the cameras, but to his relief the eagle vision was one thing that didn’t come and go with the migraines, and he flicked it on and off with gleeful abandon on top of the property line’s walls. Ugly stucco, of course.  
The surrounding area on the block is mostly a couple parking garages and high trees, so Desmond used the privacy to check the grounds out.

The property had a large concrete entrance, with a sleek, black fountain in all geometric shapes. Marble and granite were large features of the building itself, as well as sleek, tinted glass, and automated features. Revolving doors silent as a breeze, the soft trickle of water in the fountain rather than a noisy rush springing into the air, and artfully places trees making it probably an enjoyable place to eat lunch.

Red trails glowed softly across dark indigo ground, everything stark and clear even at this time at night. Or, early morning. It was probably past two by now.

 _‘But that doesn’t mean there isn’t security.’_ Altair muses.

Sure enough, as soon as Desmond crouches slightly further down, a security guard rounds the corner on a cart, talkie crackling. He doesn’t look very menacing, but he’s bright red, with golden outline under his belt that Desmond assumes is something he wouldn’t want to see up close.

“Okay, everyone just be quiet while I do this.” Desmond muttered, taking a deep breath. There’s a light feeling in his head as most everyone takes a metaphorical step back, and Desmond breathes out a sigh of relief.

He can do this. Easy.

He drops silently from the wall before he can think about it anymore, wind rushing past him briefly, before landing safely in some flower bushes.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The run across the grounds was simple enough, dodging into bushes, and avoiding the rotating cameras line of sight, highlighted in red. Three more guards go rolling by as he circles the building, most of it surrounded by artful bushes and walkways.  
Easy cover.

Desmond had never utilized the Eagle Vision so voluntarily before, but it continued to astound him, all the way up to the point where it led him into the one building entrance that had gum jammed in the lock, presumably so some enterprising worker can come in after hours without a key. Maintenance, or custodial most likely.  
He pries it off and tosses it into the bushes,.

The door opens with a louder creak than he’s comfortable with, and Desmond scoots in flat against the wall, hood up, and breath coming fast.

 _Jesus, I’m already sweating._ He thinks nervously, rubbing his palms on his jeans, and continuing along the hall, dimly lit by fluorescent fire lighting along the floor. It smells sort of like a post office, or a bank. Plastic carpet, linoleum floor polish, paper.

_’Must be the lower levels.’_ Clay faux whispers, and Desmond visibly starts, waving a hand irritably at his ear, as if it would get him to shut up.

_‘What?? I’m just saying, go higher, where Stark probably keeps the Industries office floors.’_ Clay puts in.

Desmond rolls his eyes, but keeps moving, footsteps silent on the carpet.

The few guards he encounters are easily avoided by ducking into unlocked office doors as son as he sees their red glow through the walls. He impresses himself at one point by running up the wall and grabbing onto a supporting strut with the knife blade, braced against the wall with one foot, and the strut by his wrist (which hurt _so. Bad._ ), until the guard he’d avoided passed safely by, looking down at his cellphone.

 

He doesn’t turn the eagle vision off until he gets to the twentieth floor, taking a break in the stairwell to check the fire map. The lighting is bright enough to read by, and the writing is colored in blue, one of the only downsides he’d found to eagle vision . Colored writing, man. A bitch to read. 

According to his folder (which he of course, burnt), he’s looking for a Hamell. David Hammel is currently in the process of approving the mass production of Tony Starks newest phone model, and checking over the final tune-ups done by R&D, His office is locked three ways to Sunday, but to Desmond’s clients delight, he often eats his lunch with the window open, making it easily navigable by someone with Desmond’s skills. 

Good climbers. Surprisingy hard to find in Manhattan on such short notice.

“Should I go up more floors and rappel down? Or try to find an office to the side and cross the balcony?” Desmond muses out loud, checking the map, which is near next to useless. Stark keeps an iron grip on their blue prints, since (haha) they were so susceptible to corporate espionage.

 _’Oh, me? I’m sorry, you didn’t want our help._ Clay puts in sulkily, after a very long moment of ignoring Desmond.

“What? Yes, jeez, I’m just thinking out loud.” Desmond says defensively, checking his wrist blade before he keeps going. It’s fine, not bent at all from the acrobatics he’d just put it through, and his wrist was fine. His other wrist was still a mess of burnt flesh, but hey. Glass half full, right?

 _’No, you were fishing for help. I can read your mind numb nuts._ Clay points out, and Desmond rolls his eyes again.

“Ok, fine.” He snicks the blade back up, pushing his hood back on. “Be that way. I’m going to try the office next door first, and if I fall to my death, you’re coming with me.”

Desmond presses the crash bar on the stairwell door, and almost gets his face smashes in by a crackling fist of electricity.

He jerks his face to the side, and it crashes into the wall instead, a small, surprisingly dainty fist passing a few inches in front of his face, and singing his eyebrows. He stumbles back, the fire door crashing shut behind him.

“Holy-”

“Put your hands up.”

Desmond scrambles back across the hallway, all the way into the office floor, his back bumping into a desk as the woman trains what looks like _tazer bracelets_ at him. Templar? Assassin? Jaded office worker here for late-night revenge?

He flips his eagle vision on in a panic, and she simply glows red, with outlined gold weapons _everywhere_ The woman has long red hair and pale skin, something out of a James Bond novel, flat and deadly looking expression, with narrow blue eyes currently glaring at him like he’s personally fucked up her night., She’s wearing a tac suit, all black, and, uh. Incredibly flattering. The agreement in his head is unanimous.  
Very flattering.

“Who the fuck are you?” Desmond demands, heart kicking into overdrive. Jesus, it’s only been two days, how the fuck did the Templars find him this fast? His mind is taut as a piano string, the situation kicking the Assassins into a bit of a kerfuffle, and the tension starts a small tic behind his eye that he twitches away irritably.

 _I got this, just relax._  
_’I am not so sure you do.’_ Desmond starts to get offended at Altair, but hesitates, keeping his attention on the woman, who’s staring hard at him.

She arches an eyebrow at him, but apparently decided to ignore the fact that he probably looks like a crazy person.  
“No, that’s not how this works.” She says slowly, and her bracelet hums to life again. Her hair looks like it’s glowing in the light, and Desmond feels only slightly out of his depth all of a sudden. She wasn’t an Assassin. Or, not a capital ‘A’ one.  
Otherwise she’d recognize him. Probably not Templar either, for the same reason.  
“I’m asking the questions.” She continues.” Who do you work for? Hammer?”

“Hammer? Like, the tech guy?!” Maybe. “No!”

She gives him a disbelieving stare, almost amused. “Military?” Gosh, hope not. “Private? What, South America getting in on Stark tech?” Probably, for all he knows. The folder didn’t say. He’s now relieved it didn’t.  
He keeps shaking his head no, ass on the carpet, and hands raised hesitantly.  
She frowns, clearly not getting the answers she’s looking for, and Desmond feels his skin prickle just in time to roll out of the way as she throws a knife where his foot previously was.

She presses the advantage before he can get it together, kicking at Desmond, who manages to roll to his knees and block it with his arms, the power behind it sending him back a step, before he manages get a hold of her foot. He swings her around, but she seems to twist in midair, landing on all fours and launching back at him like a homing missile, a blur of black in the dim light of the office, lit by the glow of her bracelets and the streetlights on the street far below. He dodges the next hit, snicks his blade out and takes a swipe at her.

Her eyes widen and she ducks back, both of them separating for a moment.

Desmond crouches warily, breathing heavily, his arm hurting so much he feels nauseous with it, the adrenaline doing shit all to cover the pain.

 _’That’s the Black Widow.’_ Clay puts in suddenly, sounding in awe.

“Black widow?” Desmond blurts out, frowning, and the woman frowns right back, confused, charging her gauntlets up. She wipes the thread of blood away from the nick on her face. “What are you, some kind of professional femme fatale?” Something like a smile crosses her face, before it turns cold and hard, and she comes at him again, moving like a blur, right, left, right, right, right-

Desmond keeps pivoting, trying to keep his bad arm away from her, but she zeroes in like a tiger, flipping a knife from her belt in between one move and the next, and slamming it towards Desmond’s head, which he catches on his arm instead with a scream, hitting the wall hard, with her pushing him.

He kicks his feet up, sending her back, and slides down the wall to the carpet, where he yanks the knife out with a pretty gross sound, the pain almost blinding.

Desmond staggers to his feet, blade out-

And takes a tazer to the chest.

There’s excruciating pain, and he feels his brain flood with fire all over again, his skin drawing tight over his brain and skull and his hands shaking out of control-

Everything goes dark.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Ran into a snag.” Natasha says into her comm, only slightly out of breath. She pushes a stray hair out of her face, slightly sweaty from both the sneak up here, as well as kicking this guys ass. Thanks god she’d wiped her secretary face off, or her makeup would be running _everywhere._

“What kind of a snag?” Coulson sounds politely interested over the crackle of static, but not overly concerned. His default. And it makes Natasha smirk slightly.

“The sharp, and pointy kind. Send up containment to pick up a package for me, I want to interrogate him at the earliest possibly moment when we’re done here. Mid to late twenties, gray jacket, knife on his arm, and...” She crouches down to inspect the interloper. “Bit of a desperate look about him, drugs maybe. Mentally unstable, clearly.” She pushes his sleeve up, checking the wound on his arm, which is oozing blood pretty steadily. She’d tried to make it as non-lethal as possible, but hey. What else can you do when they just won’t go quietly?  
She pushes the other sleeve up, taking in the engraved, leather gauntlet, the mechanism holding a wicked looking blade.

“How archaic.” She murmurs. Coulson makes an interested sound over the open com. “He has a gauntlet with a stylistic ‘A’ emblem.” She drops his arm, standing and turning to the window, tapping her foot thoughtfully. “Anyone we know?”

“ Hmmmm. Maybe.” Coulson says thoughtfully. 

But why would he break into Stark Industries? The same night Natasha was, at that. A month as Tony Starks PA, and she gets this kind of shit storm trashing the office. She was supposed to be in and out without a trace, and now-

She looks back at the office with a wince, taking in the papers strewn everywhere, the large blood stains, scorch marks in the wall, a couple knives in the floor.

“Might want to send a clean up crew as well.”

She switches the comm off, and turns back, to find the man standing up, arm cradled against his chest, and a blank look in his eyes. The only light cast on him is reflected streetlight from about twenty stories below, otherwise he’s in the dark.

Natasha freezes.  
The man keeps staring at her, his eyebrows furrowed. He looks around, like he’s not sure where he is. Natasha takes the opportunity to charge her widows bite again, the heat starting to seep noticeably through to her wrists.  
The crackle and whine brings his eyes to her, and her breath catches when she sees them flash gold for a moment. A mutant maybe?

“That was 80000 volts.” She says, almost conversationally. He looks interested. She flips her wrists, and the whine gets higher. “This is 120000.”

The mans eyes narrow, before he grins widely.  
He takes a fighting stance, blood dripping from the bottom of his sleeve and onto the carpet. He seems to be standing differently than before… Wider, more balanced.

“Non è mai educato rifiutare una signora .” He purrs, and it’s only because she’d seen weirder that Natasha doesn’t take a step back at how different the mans voice sounds. Not just a different language.  
He should be unconscious right now, not flirting in Italian.

She doesn’t have time for this.

“Last chance.” Natasha warns, walking towards him, bites crackling.

“ _Bella signora,_ I have been waiting for this moment my whole life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's kind of rushed, mainly because I wanted to get something out in time for Desmond's birthday. Kind of late! Happy birthday, ya big nerd.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so I got such nice comments, it's making me blush. So here's another chapter. You'll notice I took some characters out of the tags, because I realized if I did ALL of the plot points I wanted to do, we'd be here forever, and this is already turning out much longer than I planned. Sorry if anyone was looking forward to it! (I might write something special, but separate....)  
> Anyway!  
> Writing.  
> Takes much more research than I originally thought. We're all learning things today I guess!  
> Two more songs to listen to while reading!!; Another Way to Die by Jack Black w/ Alicia Keys, and Renegade by Styx.

He doesn’t remember anything past getting tazered, or before waking up.  
But he’s under water, which probably isn’t right.

Desmond sputters the rest of the way awake, thrashing up to the surface, coughing water out of his lungs, and gagging slightly. Did he fall?  
He felt like he just woke up in a dream, where you fell from a really big height and you’re eyes snap open just as you hit the ground… When did he fall asleep?

_’Funny story about that….’_

He looks wildly around, finally realizing he’s in the courtyard of the Stark Offices.  
After getting his ass kicked?  
What the hell happened? And why does he feel like he just went ten rounds with a brontosaurus?

_’We jumped stupid. Obviously.’_

Desmond looks up at the twentieth floor, astonished. There’s glass still tinkling down form the window into the courtyard, and a power line dangling from one corner of the building, Thankfully not live.  
He prays to god that these voices in his head aren’t hallucinations. Because they just made him jump out of a 20th story window, and he’s sort of scared that he doesn’t remember it.

“How the fuck did that happen?” He tried to ignore how shrill his voice is starting to sound. Calm, gotta stay calm.

 _‘My apologies, fratello. I… Temporarily took up residence while you rested.’_ He doesn’t sound sorry at all. _’Ah, but what a beautiful woman! Such grace! Such ferocity. She reminded me of Sofia’._ He says wistfully.

 _’And I suppose every red headed woman who tries to hit you reminds you of your late wife?’_ Connor asks dubiously.

_’Only the ones who make me bleed.’_

Desmond slogs his way out of the fountain, red trailing behind him in little plops until he finally makes it to the edge, slinging a leg over the edge. He just rolls off, flopping onto the concrete below with a wet _smack._  
He lays there for a moment.

Ok, a few moments.

 _’You need to go to this Martin and take your payment. You were misinformed about the contents of this mission; A grievous error on his part.’_ Altair informs Desmond solemnly, while he gets to his feet and wrings out the edge of his jacket, making his way back to the tree he’d come in on. He pauses in his tracks.

“You think?”

 _’Dude, that was the Black Widow. She’s like…. A super assassin. Lowercase ‘a’._ Clay amends. _’She’s been a heavy hitter for the elite since the late eighties. KGB, CIA, ABC… She’s seen it all. No way that job was 10,000 if the Black Widow was there for the same thing. Cell phone design my ass.’_

 _’We were set up, Desmond.’_ Altair sounds icy.

Desmond lets some of that anger wash over him. Martin had always been sort of ham-handed about this stuff, preferring to screw people over and let his muscle deal with the retaliation. And retaliation, he did get. A lot.  
Desmond starts towards the nearest parking garage.

Time to see how well he remembers how to hot wire a car.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“Remind me again how this happened.”

Coulson toes the mess in the carpet, blood squelching out around his foot, and makes a face. The clean up crew hadn’t brought in any more light, reluctant to let any one else in the surrounding buildings or floors know there was anything going on, and the lighting made the stains in the carpet inky black.

Natasha is clearly sulking, although no one but Coulson would know it to look at her. Despite her ice-queen mystique, Coulson knows she prides herself on being undefeatable, as well as enigmatic. Keeps the peons guessing. She didn’t like the recovery team seeing her bleed.  
Coulson didn’t like it either.

She sighs irritably, looking at her hand instead of Phil, stretching it out while she ices her elbow. “I come in to get the information. I circumvent the guards, I get to the top floor, and someone starts talking to themselves in the stairwell.” Her sentences are clipped and brisk, official. “We engage, I get him on the ground. I report into you. He gets back up, and it’s like a whole other person. His fighting style was different, his voice was different. His _eyes_ were different-“ Natasha cuts herself off, and sniffs haughtily, moving the ice to her other elbow.  
“He picked himself back up, and we went at it again, and he threw himself out the window.”

Coulson raises an eyebrow. “From the twentieth floor?” He looks at the smashed window dubiously. It _was_ breezy in here. “How’d he get through the glass in the first place?”

“I… May have gotten carried away.” Natasha says guiltily. Coulson gives her a measuring look, before leaning out the window to observe the office chair in a mangled heap far below. A few pieces of glass break off, falling far below into the courtyard. The fountain is surrounded by a splash zone, as well as a trail of mixed water and blood leading to the outer gates.

Coulson gives Natasha a slightly disappointed look. She simply gives him a small shrug, pulling out her phone while the clean up crew finishes gathering evidence and putting the office to rights. Probably texting Pepper about whatever cover story she was using to excuse her absence, while they clean this mess up.  
Someone’s already on the way to replace the spots of carpet from an identical supplying warehouse; papers are being replaced on desks, based on previous security footage; and some unlucky agent is painstakingly cataloguing all the physical evidence from the interloper that he can comb from the carpets. Standard procedure.

“And he landed in the fountain you say?”

Natasha nods in agreement. “Slowed his fall by grabbing a power line, swung it around to over the water, and fell the last ten feet like he did it everyday.” She tucks the phone away. “Pretty nimble.”

This was only supposed to be a small op, a side job the Tony Stark mission, but now they had some sort of mutant in an unknown organization breaking, entering, and wreaking havoc. Not only that, but Coulson had been mildly surprised to find not a trace of him in the security footage, beyond a small flicker in the corners, or over the screen. Not including his unceremonious clamber from the fountain.

God only knows how he circumvented all the cameras; half of the shots were only avoidable by climbing almost sheer walls, or the cameras themselves. They had to have inside knowledge, or at least an idea of the layout, which was next to impossible. SHIELD had such close feelers on Stark Industries at the moment, that Tony Stark himself didn’t eat breakfast without Coulson knowing about it. Based on the only other footage they’d found of him in a five mile radius, in a grocery store parking lot three blocks over, he’d managed to find the cameras, guards, and alarm system, and make it upstairs all in about ten minutes.

A professional, clearly, but no one they had on the books.

“I cased this op for a week. No one else was looking this way, or I would have noticed their feelers out.” Natasha muses, and Coulson simply looks over interestedly, used to Delta team continuing lines of thought he hadn’t voiced. “He was good, whoever he was. Not as good as me, of course.” She amends, smirking slightly. “You might want to be checking hospitals for a stab wound, right arm. Badly burnt for some reason. _I_ didn’t do it Coulson, don’t give me that look. He had it before I saw him.” She taps her fingers thoughtfully. “It looked a few days old.”

“I’ll send out the standard sweep, you’ll need to sit with an artist so we can get an idea of what this guy looks like. But as soon as you’re done, we need you back on Stark.” Coulson rubs his mouth tiredly. “Apparently you’re going to Monaco.”

Natasha gets up, rolling her eyes, and shoves the now melted ice pack in the nearest medics arms. She shakes her arm out with an audible popping sound, scowling.

“Wonderful.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Desmond finds Martin at Silk, a nightclub he has a part profit in. He gets by the door-man at the back entrance simply by pushing past and not looking at him, and it seems the blood dripping on the floor keeps him from making a fuss about it. He does, however, buzz ahead on his mouth piece.

It’s poker night, and Desmond has to wait a few minutes before Martin looks up from the table and sees him. He immediately brightens. “Dez! Dez, Dez, Dez, it’s been too long my man. How’d it go? You get the thing? This is Desmond, gentlemen, a true professional-“

“You didn’t tell me the Black Widow would be there.”

A few of the people at the table start to look a mixture of annoyed, and nervous.

Martin stops talking, giving Desmond a cursory once over, and seems to think a moment. “Well then. Let’s talk. Elsewhere.” He gets up, causing a small ripple of dissent around the table, but both of them ignore it in favor of heading to the side office, where the thumping bass from the club is slightly less audible. Someone continues the game behind him, and Desmond’s pretty sure he hears a drink being poured over murmuring before the door clicks shut behind him.

Martin is tall, almost always wearing long, fashionable coats over silk shirts and plenty of jewelry, gold on black skin. It should look ridiculous, but he was always charismatic enough to pull it off. Desmond had met him after a month on the street, and he’d given the homeless kid odd jobs to keep him busy, moving up until Desmond had enough money to get his own place. For which, Desmond was incredibly grateful. He’d never asked Desmond to do anything too hard. Mostly just some petty theft, and the occasional scare tactic. Never to hurt any one.  
And when Desmond had wanted out, he’d been a good sport about it, giving him a job at one of his _many_ partially owned establishments, Bad Weather.  
Desmond owes him a lot, and he likes the guy.

But when Martin sits down and opens his mouth, clearly about to ask about the flashdrive, Desmond holds up a hand to cut him off.

He would have been terrified by the look on Martins face two years ago, incredulous at being interrupted. But he’d seen worse, and was _not_ in the mood to fuck around.

 _He sent you on this to muck up some kind of government operation._ Clay points out, and Desmond snicks his blade out in rely. Martin shuts his mouth and narrows his eyes, waiting.

“I want to get paid half price for my trouble. You didn’t give me the information I needed to do my job, and that’s on you.” Desmond says slowly, seriously. Martin keeps his silence, long, painted fingers tapping on the arm of the rolling chair. “I like you Martin. So I’m going to choose to believe you thought I would be able to get out of that without getting arrested. Or killed. I’m going to keep things clear between us.” He leans in. “But if I ever get sent on some sort of shit milk-run like that again, I’m going to kill you.”

Martin presses his lips together, and looks Desmond up and down, measuring. The only sound is the murmuring of the bodyguards out the door keeping an eye on the poker game, and the distant laughter and thumping music of the dance floor somewhere above them.

Martin lifts a hand, and presses his fingers to the center of Desmond’s chest, pushing him back. Desmond goes, blade retreating up his sleeve with a flick of his wrist. There’s still blood dripping on the floor.

“You’re right Desmond, I do like you.” He pats his chest, and Desmond stays still, letting Martin cop a feel and rolling his eyes. “Which is why I’ll pay you a third.” He snaps his fingers when Desmond opens his mouth to protest, and Desmond cuts it off, gritting his teeth and glaring. “You disrespected me in my own place, you’re lucky I don’t have you killed.” Martin reminds him coldly, and Desmond says nothing.

“I’ll pay you a third. Three grand for getting your ass kicked by a girl, and I’m rounding down.” Martins eye’s track down to Desmond’s hand, which he balls into a fist without thinking about it. There’s a plopping sound on the floor, which he ignores to keep his eyes on Martin. The man slowly moves, circling, looking Desmond up and down critically. Desmond knows he probably looks very different from the last time Martin saw him, but it’s still uncomfortable to know someone can see the stress that’s dropped weight off of his frame, the scars, the deep circles under his eyes that are stark against the almost greenish cast of his face.

He holds still, scowling and trying not to fidget. It’s like being looked over by a shark.

 _’What are we, a piece of meat? I’m getting dizzy._ Ezio sniffs irritably, and Desmond shuts his eyes against the pain in his head. A trickle of blood comes from his nose, and he wipes it away blankly, sick and tired of nosebleeds, and headaches, and waiting for his brain to come out of his ears. He needs sleep.

“You’ve grown up.” Martin finally decides, brushing an imaginary piece of lint off of Desmond’s shoulder. He tries not to flinch. “I’m…. Impressed.” He comes to a stop in front of Desmond, and pulls out his wallet, rings winking as he flips through it. He pays Desmond in hundreds.  
Desmond reaches out cautiously.  
“I’ll have more jobs for you. Possibly some of my friends will as well. I can contact you through the usual?” He asks, through a blinding white grin.

_That_ doesn’t sound shady.  
“…Send me a text at the usual.” Desmond replies after a brief silence, sullenly pocketing the money. Altair’s indignity can probably be felt from space, but he squashes it down, taking the money.

Sweet jesus, he can buy _Percocet._

He turns to leave, but Martin stops him with a gentle throat clearing. He looks over his shoulder. “Oh, and Desmond?” He points a finger at him playfully. “You ever threaten to kill me again, and I’ll take off that hand that’s giving you so much trouble with a slide rule, capiche?”

Desmond slams the door behind him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He _finally_ gets to a doctor.  
A small, Korean veterinarian named Seung who he’d gone to three years previously when he sprained his ankle. She was pretty well known to take money under the table, if you weren’t hurt too bad. Or had a gunshot wound you didn’t feel like taking to the doctors office. Desmond hadn’t ever gotten hurt that way, but he _had_ had a great need not to go to any hospitals.

She’s a shitty vet, but surprisingly competent with people. If she’d stop taking money under the table for tranqs, she might have gotten her medical license back years ago.

He’d immediately been swept through he back door and into one of the familiar offices, tacky paintings of watercolor horses and fish on the walls. He’d barely had the energy to make it here from Manhattan, and Staten Island wasn’t exactly a dream to navigate at nine o clock in the morning when you’re trying to keep a low profile.

The exam was fast, and efficient. Just like Seung.

“I have no idea what the fuck’s going on with the seizures without a brain scan, and I don’t have the equipment to do it here so you’re shit out of luck.” She snaps her bloodstained gloves off, tossing them in the trash and rolling away from Desmond in her stool. He blinks at her slowly.  
“And that burn?” She whistles low, impressed. “Looks like someone decided to tattoo you with a cattle prod. I’ve seen it before with lightning strikes and the like, but never in this kind of pattern.” She gestures vaguely towards Desmond’s turned up arm, the almost circuit-like zigzags dark, maroon against the ugly red of his arm.  
The stab wound had been stitched up, and the arm splinted to keep the hairline fracture in his ulna from breaking further. He wasn’t sure what broke it, the kick towards his head, or the knife.  
He didn’t exactly remember at the moment.

He was also pretty high.

“All in all, I cannot believe you hitch hiked here all the way from- Where was it?”

“Turin.” Desmond replies muzzily, observing his left hand in excruciating detail. It seems to look _very_ interesting to him right now, but he’s not really sure why. Maybe it’s not his hand? Maybe it’s the vicodin. (Apparently he can’t have Percocet if he’s having seizures.)

He presses it cautiously to his face.

Seung crosses her arms and watches silently.

He puts his hand down.

“When was the last time you ate.” She asks flatly, taking his pulse with one finger.

Desmond shrugs noncommittally, poking at his splint curiously before Seung swats his fingers away, her small graceful hands seeming to move too fast for him to follow. He frowns and glares at her.

“Don’t touch that. Here.” She hands him a protein bar, and turns to one of her cabinets, a cheap piece of furniture just like everything else in the office. Cardboard jammed under the leg of it, and scuff marks on the edges. “I’m giving you a couple bottles of meds to control what I think look like focal seizures- The small twitches could be atonic, but I think you’re just jumpy.” She says, glaring over her shoulder at him like he’s doing it on purpose. Desmond simply ignores this, and squeezes a cotton ball between his fingers, fascinated.

She rolls her eyes. ”You can relax back here while I finish up some paper work. You’d probably get hit by a bus as soon as you went outside.” She muttered irritably, giving Desmond two bottles. “Green one twice a day for the seizures, and here’s some fucking vitamins, you look like shit.” She hands him a small ointment jar as well. “Here’s some antibacterial cream, slap it on your arm so it doesn’t rot and fall off and it should heal fine. It’ll look like you tried to reach the bottom of a deep fryer, but you should have a good range of motion with some stretching.” She points her finger at him threateningly, and Desmond rears back slightly, trying to track it. “ _Do your stretches._ ”

Desmond carefully pockets the medicine, enough to last him a month or two, and gives her a sunny grin. “Thank you.” He may be pretty stoned right now, but he sort of liked Seung. She was brisk, and efficient, when she wasn’t out right offensive.

“Shut up, don’t talk to me, I’m about to go get a pair of earrings out of a Dobermans ass, so keep quiet.” She says, sweeping up the mess of bloodstained gauze and stitching supplies into a hazardous material bin, her hair escaping from her messy bun. “Eat your protein bar so you don’t pass out or whatever.” She practically bounces from the room, and Desmond leans his head back on the small exam table. It’s almost too small for him, what Seung calls, her “Large animal office”. It was actually for patching up idiots like himself, but she liked the way it looked on tax reports.

The relief Desmond feels finally, with his arm dulled to a distant pulsing ache, his head simply swimming instead of pounding, is so profound, he thinks he’s the happiest he’s been since before Templars took him away from Bad Weather.

 _’That’s… Concerning.’_ Connor mentions briefly, and Desmond waves him off airily, too relaxed to stress.

No worrying about Templars for now. He’s going to sit in this office, he’s going to listen to an upset Doberman one room over get terrorized by Seung, and he’s going to plan his next move.

 _’Better get a second opinion when you’re sober buddy.’_ Clay says. And Desmond can practically hear how amused he is. If his head is swimming, are Clay and the rest feeling it too?

_’Nope, we’re high and dry buddy. And you need to stop talking out loud.’_

Oh.

He sits for a while, munching on the protein bar, and flipping through a newly stolen phone, also Stark, but this one has rhinestones on the back. He throws out a few texts, trying to ping anyone putting up strays for less than a thousand dollars, all he has left after getting shaken down by Seung. 

He hears Seung cackle triumphantly, and throws his protein bar wrapper away. Things are finally looking up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think we all secretly knew that Black Widow vs. Assassin would end with someone jumping out of the window.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok I'm working on this, and have lot of ideas!! But again, I'm new at this (writing), so bear with me.

Desmond get’s a call from Seung three days later.

He’s living on the highest floor of an office construction, the 52nd., when she gets a hold of him, which is impressive by itself. That’s Stark phones for you; they could probably get service from space.  
Of course, _living_ on the 52nd floor is a stretch. He’s mostly been eating deli food and sleeping, between bouts of medication and guzzling bottles of water. For some reason he’s _unbelievably_ thirsty, as well as tired. Very. _Very_ tired. Everyone currently inhabiting his head is in agreement that more sleep can only be good for him; So Desmond sleeps to his hearts content.

His dreams are vivid.

Desmond’s standing on a busy Venetian sidewalk, someone walking next to him trying to get his attention, but he’s distracted by movement in the corner of his vision, the glint of metal amidst the stalls of colored cloth and shining fish, stacked in glimmering, slippery piles-

He’s high in the air, one hand aching with both the whispering cold, and the gritty, hard edge of stone biting into the meat of his fist as he dangles thousands of feet above the city streets, Constantinople spread below him like a child’s plaything, oily lamp smoke and wood-fires staining the sky a smoky, navy blue, obscuring the stars-

A wolf jumps at him with all of the force of a pit fighter, knocking him into the cold snow that explodes down his shirt and across his back like an adrenaline shot. His hands explode into pain as he stops the snarling, snapping teeth inches from his face with his bare hands, bringing his knees up to block the claws, heart pounding with fear and his face contorting into a snarl of his own as he realizes his hands aren’t available to reach for his weapons, the wolf is _huge_ , so he brings his mouth under the jaws and _rips_ with blunt human teeth-

Desmond wakes with a shout, panting, his clothes drenched in sweat.

It’s perfectly quiet; Distant sounds of traffic drift up from below in the early morning light, people driving on their way to work. The biting cold wind blowing through the construction makes an eerie howling that shudderingly reminds Desmond of wolves in the snow, and he purposefully rolls over on his sleeping bag, jerking the blanket up over his head to ignore it.

 _’Like a child after a nightmare. You realize we are not getting back to sleep after this?’_ Altair reprimands him gently, and Desmond groans in reply, rubbing his eyes. The amount of grit he’s accumulated after three days up here is _astonishing._

“I can _try_.”

There’s a disapproving silence that makes Desmond feel like he just got a bad grade on his homework. But it IS silence, so it’s a relief.

The voices in his head are almost silent now, hardly every piping up unless they have some sort of tidbit to offer on the newspaper, or Desmond’s choice in sandwich. It seems they had been just as confused and alarmed as Desmond had been to be in his head, which is partly what resulted in the migraines and overlapping conversation. His head had felt like grand central station for the first few days, but now it was more like… Study hall. Quiet. But there’s the unmistakable feeling of people there, who are all paying attention.

Desmond’s pretty sure they know what he knows, so he doesn’t have to tell them that he occasionally likes the feeling.

He realizes his phone is ringing about the same time the wind eases up enough for him to hear it.

He’s up here because one; Nobody will ever look for him up here, and if they ever _did_ , he might as well give up now, because they could find him _anywhere_ , and two; All construction crews are still on Christmas break, so no one is up here to kick him out, or report his whereabouts like the shelters would. 

Desmond had hesitantly wandered towards one shelter, vague plans to fake an identity in mind, and been immediately deterred by the red figure he saw lurking across the street. They’d been in casual clothes, but he’d been immediately wary, and kept walking.  
Every other place he tried after that was the same; Templars, secret government agents, friends of that spider chick, who knows. But he was running out of ideas, thus; mile high club shenanigans.

He’s still looking for a place to stay, but shit. Room and board in Manhattan is nothing to sneeze at.

Desmond swings an arm out of his sleeping bag to grab his phone, thanking god for the generator he’d found up here. It was probably used to power tools, but he was currently using it to power a heating blanket, as well a phone charger, and a camp light. It wasn’t too cold in the sleeping bag, and he was used to shitty sleeping conditions anyway.

Or, at least, someone in his head was, and he was happy to utilize the snooze ability to get some well deserved R and R. He suspected it was Connor; Altair was too well trained, and Ezio didn’t seem like the deep-sleeping type. 

“Hello?” Desmond sits up, pulling his hood back off of his head to let the wind wake him up a little bit. It takes him a minute to place the swearing at the other end of the line as Seung.

“-if you’d shut the fuck up, I’m calling him now- Desmond! Thank fuck. Listen, you mentioned some friends of yours?”

Desmond blinks uncertainly into the distance. “Did I?”

“Christ, you were high. _Yes_ , you did. Someone named Becky? Rebecca?”

“Rebecca? What about her?” Desmond asks, suddenly cold. Did they get caught? Is she hurt?

“Well, she’s here right now, and some fucking punk is threatening to call the cops on me if I don’t get them in touch with you. I did _not_ sign up to be harassed by your fucking twink of a- Yes, a fucking _twink, do you want to say something glasses?-_ ”

“Seung! Seung, _Kim_ , relax!” Desmond throws himself out of the sleeping, bag, diving for his shoes. “I’ll be there soon, they’re cool, listen, just-“

”If you’re not here in twenty minutes _this man is going to be on the floor._ ”

Desmond loves Seung. But generally, even Martin avoided getting on her bad side.  
He just hoped he could smooth things over.

And also figure out how the hell Rebecca and Shaun found him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Seung and Shaun are glaring death at each other; Him holding a cell phone and backed into a corner, and her sitting in one of her exam rooms rolling chairs, thumbing a scalpel and looking murderous. 

Rebecca is looking up as the door opens, her pale face spreading into the widest grin Desmond has ever seen, and he abruptly has his arms full as she throws herself at him.

“ _Holy shit_ you _are_ alive! Desmond, thank god.” Rebecca squeezes him so tight Desmond has trouble catching his breath, and he laughs weakly as he staggers the rest of the way into the room, shutting the door behind him.

“Uh, yeah. I wasn’t doing too hot there for a while.” Desmond starts hesitantly, holding his bad arm away from the hugging-danger-zone. “You guys weren’t at the meet up place so I just… Kept going.”

“ _No._ Really? I must have imagined you lighting up like a firecracker- What happened? _How_ are you still alive?” Shaun demands , tucking his phone away now that he no longer had to carry through with his, no doubt hollow, threat to call the authorities on Seung. “We caught an APB about some hitchhiker, but we figured it was Abstergo. And then we caught you on some CCTV cameras- Don’t worry, we erased the evidence!“ Shaun adds quickly at the look on Desmond’s face. “No one knows you’re here. Except us. And… This charming lady.” Shaun looks distastefully over at Seung, who hasn’t taken her eyes off of him this whole time. She gives him a sunny smile.  
She hasn’t let go of the scalpel either, and Desmond doesn’t need Clay’s urging to figure out he needs to separate the two.

“There's a coffee place down the street- We can talk about it there.” He says, finally putting his arms around Rebecca and squeezing her back. He feels some moisture seeping into his jacket, and tries not to get misty eyed himself.

Rebecca sniffs. “We saw you _die_ jackass. Give me a minute.”  
Desmond nods to himself, and blinks rapidly. He looks over at Shaun, who looks decidedly pinched, although just as relieved as Rebecca to see him. He raises an eyebrow at him. “I don’t suppose you want to get in on this.”

“I can feel you up in my own time thank you, I’d prefer to get moving.” Shaun mutters, crossing his arms.

 _’He missed you,_ uccellino _. I can tell._ Ezio puts in, chuckling. Desmond just rolls his eyes and squeezes Becca enough for both of them.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

It turns out they hadn’t told Miles.

Desmond wrestles with his conscience for a good day before finally settling on not telling him at all.

Altair radiates disapproval, but he’s firm. He doesn’t want anything to do with the Assassins order anymore. He thinks of Lucy, and he thinks of his childhood, and he realizes that maybe Lucy hadn’t been entirely wrong. Thinks of Clay, alone and losing his mind, slitting his wrists all over Abstergo’s walls with no one but Miles to know where he went or what happened.

So no, he decided that he’s not ready to rejoin the order, and he might not ever be.

“We didn’t tell Bill. In fact, he thinks we’re in Belize right now, following some leads of where Abstergo took your body.” Rebecca informs him as they sip coffee in Starbucks, the chattering and lunch-break patrons doing better than any signal jammer to hide their conversation. Shaun is offending the baristas by making appalled faces every time he takes a sip of his Chai latte, and Rebecca is digging her spoon around the bottom of the biggest, sweetest frappuccino Desmond has _ever_ seen made in his life. He’s eighty percent sure there’s a scoop of ice cream in there, and also that it wasn’t on the menu at all.  
He has a plain, black coffee, and ignores both Rebecca and Shaun’s twin looks of disbelief.

He'd never drunk coffee before, and it was something of a sticking point when they were traveling together. Three coffees and an _iced tea_ , was what Shaun would order, and every time he'd sound more disgusted. Desmodn would suffer from the back seat in silence. Besides, he _liked_ iced tea.  
But, four different people now in his head like coffee, and he decides to treat them a little bit for not melting his brains out of his ears. So sue him.

“Desmond." He glances up. ". ..How’d you get out?” Rebecca asks, leaning slightly across the table, eyes shining. “You touched that thing, and you were _dead_. An alien goddess told us so. And yet, here you are, only slightly under the weather." She gives him a baffled look. "What _happened_?”  
Shaun puts a hand on Rebecca’s elbow. “Let’s try not to sound so accusing, hm? I’m sure Desmond has a very good story to tell us.” Shaun looks pointedly across the table at him, and Desmond tries not to smile. It’ probably not appropriate. But god, he kind of missed them.

Like, a lot.

Honestly, it didn’t even occur to him _not_ to tell them the whole story. Just because he didn’t want to be an Assassin, didn’t mean he wanted to be alone.

So he downs half his coffee in one go since he’d probably be doing a lot of talking, checks around him for eavesdroppers (everyone around them is a disinterested blue), and starts talking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize I messed with the tags some while writing this, but mainly because I couldn't figure out if I was going to use Rebecca and Shaun or not. But I managed to worm the scenes I wanted in, and now I don't know how I though I could do without them. <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I hope you noticed the change to the tags. Just thought some people might not be comfortable with the idea of suicide/ a character that may have committed suicide, so take it into account.  
> Also, everyone is so nice for leaving comments, since this was basically a practice thing that got wicked out of hand.  
> I think it may be longer than I originally planned. I was originally planning on one chapter for each Avenger?  
> And then I thought, _no_.  
>  Backstory.  
> So I guess it's ending up as my fix-it fic, and also my crossover I always wanted but never got to read?  
> Thank you for reading! And I promise we'll be getting to the good stuff soon when I'm done with all this silly setup.

Desmond likes it with Shaun and Rebecca.

By the time a month has passed, he has their coffee orders down by heart, as well as the route to Starbucks over the rooftops. 

They have a warehouse locked down under a fake company, a branch a fake small corporation of Bill’s, called ‘Empire Apples’. (Rebecca insisted Desmond’s father had so many fake, small businesses and pseudonyms that he wouldn’t miss another.).  
Shaun has interviewed and _been_ interviewed by all of Desmond’s personalities, and after careful, professional deliberation, declared him hopelessly crazy.

And possibly insane. It was difficult to tell.  
But ultimately, harmless.

“You know, it _is_ a fascinating opportunity.” Shaun starts, while the three(seven) of them are gathered over dinner; Chinese takeout; romantically lit by the glow of Rebecca’s police scanner, and satellite tracker.  
“I mean, there is literally NO accurate record of history, when you think about it. It’s all edited, censured, lost in the annals of time and war. It would be brilliant if we could have one on one interviews with people who actually lived it.” Shaun looks briefly star stricken, until Desmond starts going on about how there was just _so many_ STD’s in Renaissance Italy. Unbelievable.

Shaun doesn’t talk to him until breakfast the next day. Rebecca finds it hilarious, and starts watching History Channel documentaries when they’re on, with Shaun, just so she can tsk and ask whether or not George Washington had the clap.

The warehouse is big and empty, and the windows are tinted, but nobody bothers them and it’s safe.  
No Templars. No Assassins. No alien deities materializing to glare at you, and then disappearing again.  
(Shaun had both been gratified by Minerva’s fixation on him, and also extremely unnerved. She’d shown up in the bathroom once.)  
Just him and the last two people he trusts.

They set up cots, and computer equipment, and Rebecca and Shaun start tracking down artifacts; What they were sent to do in the first place.

They still haven’t told Bill Desmond’s with him, and Desmond still wants to lend a hand where he can. He doesn’t want anything to do with Assassins or Templars; Doesn’t mean he’s going to be an asshole and withhold knowledge and skills that would be critically important.  
The artifacts are dangerous; He held one for a brief moment, when he’d finally killed Vidic. He’d held it so hard his hands had bruised onto the engravings; and it had terrified him how great it’d felt. Not a single person in the world could have told him what to do. He’d never been more free in his life, and he’d put the guards out with a _thought._

He doesn’t like to think about what would have happened if he’d been, say, a dictator. Or a Templar.

So Desmond lets it go without saying, that he’s here to help.

 

It’s also kind of nice to have someone to talk about the weird shit his body is doing.

Besides his list of hurts and pains, there’s things like new tastes, new moods, new memories- They don’t hit him all at once.

But occasionally, he’ll be doing something mundane; Brushing his teeth, making a sandwich, going out for coffee, with his breath misting up into the late January air, thinking about when he was in Italy.  
And the canals froze over; Father was upset their vacation was ruined, but him and Claudia just laughed, and Federico showed them how to ice skate in their boots. Petruccio bawling in Mama’s arms while she laughed at them, especially once Claudia knocked Ezio down and Federico shoved snow down his shirt-

A taxi driver slams his horn, and Desmond about jumps out of his skin, blinking from where he’d been standing half off the curb.

Rebecca insists he won’t have that problem when his brain fully integrates the memories; But she also make’s sure he knows that this is all theoretical. They don’t have an Animus to check his memories integration and seperation, and even if they did, Desmond would never willingly get into one again.

He decides he can live with that.

 

He sleepwalks too, which is... Expected.  
He was doing it in Abstergo, as soon as he started using the Animus. His doors had been locked then though, so nothing really came of it, besides him waking up in the shower every now and then, terrified that they’d done some sort of freaky science shit to him while he was sleeping and forgotten to put him back into bed.  
(Lucy had reassured him, and yeah. Desmond had believed her even then. Desperate for anyone to tell him something was ok.)

But now it was getting ridiculous; Altair was trying to sneak him extra exercise when he felt like Desmond was slacking in fitness. Which was frequently.  
Apparently two hours of crunches just _wasn’t enough for some people._  
He woke up on the pull up bars once, and almost fallen the fifteen feet to the floor; He hadn’t even known someone _put_ bars up there.  
That had put a stop to that.  
Although they did compromise; he started working out more often, but he also got Ben and Jerry’s twice a week.  
It was pretty great to feel a 12th century Syrian taste chunky monkey for the first time.

Clay surfed the internet, weirdly enough, conversing with Connor the whole time, who seemed to find the idea of the internet and all the people on it _way_ more interesting than alien technology that put him, and the mirror images of three other people, into some bartenders head.  
It would be almost irritating; But Connor writing in forums was also kind of hilarious, so Desmond willingly gave up sleep for that.

Ezio seemed the most passive, and it reminds Desmond every day that he was first and foremost, the Mentor; the man who trained dozens, and by proxy, hundreds of Assassins in the seventeen-hundreds; who pried not one, but _two_ artifacts from the hands of tyrants and madmen. The Staff and the Apple.

Sometimes he would offer advice, and occasionally ask Desmond a minute to takeover so he can sample some piece of food, or feel some bit of weather he’d never seen before. But he seems content to watch through Desmond, and is almost always the first to offer helpful advice.

Desmond goes to an art bazaar once or twice, and feels content.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He does have his worries though.  
“You guys aren’t like... Trapped in there, are you?” Silence greets him. He rolls his eyes and shoves his hands under his pillow, turning towards the windows. It’s quiet enough where he can hear the sound of the ocean a block away; An almost subsonic feeling underneath the sparse, marine traffic.

Rebecca and Shaun were used to him whispering to himself at night, so he wasn’t worried about them hearing and thinking he was crazy; Haha.  
Because he _was_.  
“No purgatory-like surroundings?... You guys aren’t miserable,right?” Desmond asks them, suddenly uncomfortable with the implications of body sharing. It had been bothering him for days; Since Ezio had suggested a trip to the shore when he became bored one day, laying around waiting for Rebecca and Shaun to find something. He thought it might be nice to let Altair try swimming for a change.

He wanted to leave it be; After all, it’s not like there’s a fix it if they _are_ miserable.  
But he’s learned it’s better to ask things upfront with them, since they just find out anyway.  
Same brain, remember.

 _‘Nah man. Think,_ ‘Being John Malkovich’. _But also,_ ‘The Matrix’.’

“That’s.... Not reassuring.” Desmond frowns in bed, staring up at the ceiling. So presumably, they had surroundings?

 _‘Would it reassure you to know that we are as content as you are with the situation?’_ Conner points out, sounding unbothered.

Desmond _does_ find it reassuring. Since they know exactly how he feels about sharing body-space- Weirded out, kind of confused all the time, but also; Not lonely. And interesting.

He never thought he’d come to turns with it, and he _was_ seriously bothered by it at times. So much so that he thinks about ways to reverse it, get them out of his head-

But other times he enjoys the company, and finds that he actually likes all of them more or less as people. It’s almost like having best friends.  
Who are also your grandparents.

And also never ever ever leave you alone.

So.

 

There are perks to having memories that aren’t his though; Instant TV.

Sometimes Desmond closes his eyes before he goes to sleep, and purposely calls up images of four lifetimes. He does it almost every night; Rebecca says it helps him integrate his memories. Shaun just says he’s a voyeur.  
But he enjoys learning new things about his new guardians, snippets from their past. Like;

His mother walking through the snow, his small, freckled hand reaching up to take hers, and she smiles down at him. The smell of the smoky furs, and the visceral smell of the killed rabbit on her belt as they head back to the village, one of the last times he remembers being at peace-

The garden in winter, an unseasonably wet dusting of rain turning the delicate flowers and orchids into spidery, glittering sculptures, and Al Mualim laments at the loss of such rare plants. But Desmond spends hours out there with Malik, laying on their backs in the cold, watching the early morning sunlight slant off of the rooftops and into the courtyard to make it _shine-_

A beautiful girl laying in bed behind him while he gets ready to meet with Miles, she’s smiling and asking if she can get his number, telling him that last night was _amazing_ , and the sun falling through the delicate, papered window and dappling color across her body is just so beautiful he grins hopelessly at her, and climbs back into bed; She’s laughing at him, and then gasping, and he’s an hour late, but he doesn’t even pretend to be sorry at Miles disapproving stare when he gets to the venue. He never sees her again, but he does think about her briefly while he opens his wrists with a piece of blunt plastic, a writing utensil disassembled so he can finally be _free_ , he needs to _get the fuck out_ -

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_‘Sorry.’_ Clay mentions, while Desmond finishes throwing up in the toilet. He flushes, and starts running the water to brush his teeth. He’s shaking bit, but no seizure this time, so the medication’s working. He washes his hands in the cool, almost rusty water from the bathroom sink.  
And maybe just sticks his head under for a while.

Desmond thinks of his father, and Lucy, and just shuts his eyes, letting the water trickle through his hair, and down around his ears like icy fingers.  
He would tell Clay everything he’s thought since he found out what happened to him. Every time he’s been helped by the information he left, or thought of him and just. Kept going. But Clay’s in his head.  
They don’t need to say anything.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Almost a month after he gets his ass kicked by the Black Widow, he sees her again.

 

If he had his way, he’d move to the other side of the world to avoid the woman; And whatever organization she was with that helped her break into a _Stark_ office without it making the news, but apparently a good amount of the artifacts they’re looking for are in North America, so.

And normally they wouldn’t be out in public, but Rebecca _insists_ they need to go to the Stark Expo. It’s in town, they’re close, it’s _Tony Stark_ you fascist assholes, I’m going to have his _children-_

There’s really not much of a choice.

They don disguises, but the odds of someone spotting them in the crowd is so outlandish, that Shaun laughs at Desmond’s dumb question about it for a good two seconds too long to be anywhere _near_ polite. Barring high tech face scanners, they’re good to go.  
All of Stark Expo, theirs to explore.

 

“ _Why_ are we in a _Hammer_ exhibition?”  
Shaun sinks down into his seat, pulling his pamphlet up to hide his face. So no one he knows can see him? Desmond’s not sure. “He’s practically paying to be here.”

“Just how Stark likes it probably.” Rebecca cackles, kicking back. She’s even got _popcorn_. The crowd is strangely subdued; probably the fact that it’s Hammer, and not some sort of looming threat. He couldn’t rile up a crowd if he was throwing money.  
“He’s probably here just to make Stark stuff look better. I mean sure, he’s pretty flashy, and Hammer guns are pretty good when they don’t rush through their preliminaries, but their phones are a _nightmare_. And I’m pretty sure there was at least two recalls in the last decade on medical equipment.” She smiles, and serenely tosses back a handful of popcorn. “I’m just here to watch him crash and burn.”

Desmond sits back, and enjoys being outside for once. In a crowd, no less. It was jarring to be in such a big crowd, even if her _hadn’t_ spent the better part of a year either in a lab, or in a van with three other people. But he wasn’t freaking out, so he soaked in the atmosphere, occasionally running his Eaglevision over the crowd. It wasn’t doing too well with any one more than three aisles away, but it would do if anyone spotted them.

There’s a moment where it goes dark and they play some opening promo video about Hammertech that he tunes out, wrestling for some popcorn with Rebecca; But he pays attention when people start clapping.

Hammer walks out on stage during the applause, and Desmond opens his mouth to crack a joke- Probably something lame that’ll make Shaun lift his head from behind the pamphlet, if only to _truly_ convey his disappointment in Desmond, and Rebecca laugh-

When he makes eye contact with the Black Widow.

His mouth shuts so fast he almost cracks a tooth.

 

She’s smiling as she turns away from someone- Holy shit, Pepper Potts?- when she sees him, and abruptly it’s like a switch is flipped; She goes from mild-mannered, competent secretary to Stark Industries CEO; to blank-eyed, bird of prey so fast Desmond’s surprised that the people in the seats around her can’t see their breath all of a sudden.

He spends in eternity staring at her, eyes wide behind his sunglasses and the faint scruff he’d grown, but he’s suddenly aware that for Black Widow, that’s probably not enough. The regret would crush him, if he was 100 percent certain she wasn’t stopping his heart with her mind from five rows away.

Hammer is still talking, but Desmond’s hardly paying attention at all, staring at the demurely dressed figure holding a clipboard and smart phone in her lap, blazoned so bright in red _just from bleedthrough effect_ , she looked like she was glowing.

Shit.

_’I would suggest haste._ Altair prompts him, and Desmond finally manages to break his gaze away, and starts moving.

“Bathroom. Be right back.” Desmond says to the other two when he turns away from Widow, hoping that she hasn’t guessed he’s with them.  
God, she’s probably going to disappear him like the fucking CIA. He’s starting to _really_ hate clandestine organizations.

“Hurry back so you can help me film a blooper reel.” Rebecca sing songs, hidden camera in her hair clip pointed at the stage. “I’m thinking anything by the Scissor Sisters will probably do.”

Desmond smiles weakly, and starts sliding back out of the aisle, trying to keep his movement slow and steady. Not panicked at all, nope.  
Just... Getting a snack.

_‘You punched her in the face man. I think she’s going to kill you._

“You don’t have to sound so happy about it.” Desmond hisses, ignoring the startled look from the woman who’s lap he’s currently almost in. Who the hell designed this place? And _why were the aisles so small?_

‘I _for one am excited. We’ve been training for a month! This is an excellent way to test your skills._ ’ Altair points out.  
Desmond tries not to groan aloud; Probably be less acceptable than talking to yourself in someone’s lap. _‘She’s formidable, but if you fail, or get scared I’m sure one of_ us _can take over.’_  
Okay, Clay sounded impressed; _Altair_ sounds happy.

Desmond finally made it out, keeping track of the Widows progress through her aisle out of the corner of his eye. She wasn’t moving as fast; In fact, if Desmond hadn’t seen her spot him, he would have thought she was just a secretary; smiling charmingly while she stepped over people shoes, laughing in embarrassment when she catches someone’s purse with her heel, and hunched over as though she was going to block someone’s view.

 _‘She’s scary.’_ Clay comments.

Desmond decides that’s as good a time as any to start moving a little faster, and breaks out into a light jog towards the exit, thinking to lose her in the crowd.

That’s when Iron Man lands on stage, and the crowd goes fucking wild.

He looks back, distracted, and make a note that the suit is just as impressive live as it is on tv, from what little he can see through peoples upraised hands; Before turning back to the doors, starting to compose an explanation to the bouncer in his head of why he’s leaving, that doesn’t sound _extremely fake_. It’s not going well. He’s... Very sick?

Thankfully for his _awful_ , skills at lying, that’s when gunfire breaks out, and everything goes to shit.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm starting to regret winging this, but also determined to finish the _whole thing_ so help me god.  
>  Already making plans to revisit this when it's done, even though I think I'm only about a third of the way there.  
> I appreciate so many of the nice comments I get! We're going to be getting further into the MCU soon, now that I've got Iron Man 2 out of the way.

It’s just Desmond’s life that he’d actually at some point have to deal with a killer robot stomping towards him.

There’s a derisive snort from his head. _‘Really? Kidnapped by Templars? Sent through time using genetic memory? Getting messages from an ancient, godlike species you may or may not be distantly related to? And_ killer robots _is what get’s your funny bone?_  
Desmond looks behind him to check how much space he has, brushing the monologue away irritably.

Clay raises a good point though.

“Desmond!” There’s a small crashing noise, and the sound of footsteps he tries not to look at, eye’s currently on the proverbial, murderous prize. “I think we have to go! “

Desmond made time from his very hasty backwards retreating, eyes fixed on the- _killer robot_ coming towards him, to see Shaun and Rebecca making for him; Shaun with one of the small velvet rope stands in his hands like a baseball bat, looking like he wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it if he had to use it; And Rebecca, phone out and typing madly, her face pale and hands flying.

“You think?” He yells back, a little hysterically, watching one of the guns on the things shoulder come out, the clicking of it’s gears and the whine as it started to charge up-

Only to click empty.

It’s head swivels to Rebecca, who suddenly looks nervous, although she doesn’t stop typing on her phone. Desmond’s incredibly grateful that she carries the giant hunk of hardware around everywhere she goes; that things so tricked out it has more processing power than most small laptops.

“I can’t figure out where the signal’s coming from, but I’m trying to jam some of it as it comes through- A little help Dez!” Her voice rises in pitch as the robot loses interest in Desmond and comes towards them, eyes glowing red. Apparently Rebecca was doing _something_ effective, if the guns weren’t working.  
Unfortunately, it was also making her a target.

Desmond starts moving, eyes flashing into eaglevision-

Everything slows down, and he baseball slides under the robots clumsy swipe, but the robots head swivels back 180 degrees to follow him like a gun turret. 

Also confirming his idea that there’s no one inside.

He thunks a foot against the undercarriage, rolls out of the way as it tries to stomp on his _very_ fragile, human head, and gets another kick in, not even _considering_ punching the hunk of metal. He just _regained_ use of one hand, thanks.

Desmond gets in front of it, and finally manages to catch it’s attention, able to see the inner workings of it’s sensors zooming in on him. as he dances around in front of it, jabbing it one more time for good measure.  
That’s... A good thing?

His climbing shoes do absolutely shit against it, but he gets the robot to start paying attention to him again, turning it away from Rebecca and Shaun, and back towards him.

The circuitry and machinery stand out in his vision like an intricate, gold constellation, weak points and power lines, the shifting inside the shoulders as bullet casings were swapped out, and the running electricity of the targeting system.

In the center of the robot was a power source, round and glowing blue, something Desmond hadn’t ever seen before. It was eerily similar to the generators in the caves, and he frowned, still slowly backing up to draw the drone away from the other two Assassins.  
Thank god these things weren’t built for speed.

He let it get close again and dodged another blow, desperately regretting now leaving his blade behind. He follows the motion through, kicking hesitantly at the knee  
(he flashes back to an image of a large guard beside the canals, his knee twisting and going down with a cut off scream-)  
and having his foot bounce uselessly off, with nary a dent.

 _‘And what did you think was going to happen?’_ Altair puts in, the ‘you idiot’ pretty clear. God he wished he had a knife. Something tungsten. Even a _can opener_ would be better than this.

They’d been thinking it would be too hard to smuggle any sort of weapons in. What sort of huge event like this wouldn’t have metal detectors?  
After 9/11, everyone going to conventions got practically strip-searched at the door. They’d been lucky that at a _weapons_ expo they weren’t checking passports and ID’s.  
But Rebecca had just _had_ to go to Stark Expo.

Rebecca had brought some imaging-scrambling gear ad her usual multi-tool, Shaun had brought some mace, and Desmond had figured he could run away from any kind of threat, in such an open space as the fairgrounds.  
Templars? _Ha._ They could eat his free-running dust. It was pretty much the safest, most sure-fire way he knew to lose people without resorting to combat; Ancient Assassins were proud practitioners of the time-honored technique of running away. They were, arguably, the _best_.

_‘And yet, here you are.’_ Comes the slightly sarcastic rejoinder. _‘In doors. With a giant machine trying to kill you._ Ezio sounds pretty calm about the whole thing, considering he’s going to be _crushed by a giant robot right a long with him._

The robot throws another chair at him, and he yelps, rolling out of the way. 

“I need a weapon! I can’t do anything here, I need a knife- Or a fucking letter opener-”  
“DO WE LOOK LIKE WE HAVE KNIVES?” Shaun screams back, grabbing Rebecca by the shoulder and dragging the both of them behind a row of chairs. There’s another explosion outside, probably the other drones discovering the flammability of cars, and Rebecca lets out a small sound, like someone stepped on a bird.

Desmond will never understand why Altair loves Shaun best.

 

“I’m scrambling the feed, but I can’t get it to stop without finding the source! The worst I can do is take it’s guns targeting systems off-line, but it looks like there’s a back up targeting program for unarmed combat-” Rebecca lets out a frustrated groan from behind the chair, where she was apparently still running support beyond taking the guns offline. “I can’t touch it, just give me five more minutes-”

The thing finally gives up on it’s targeting systems, and picks up a hunk of scaffolding, servos whirring as it rips it right out of the cement foundations. Desmond starts swearing and moves, but he’s not fast enough, and it clips his arm, spinning him and he hits the ground, bouncing back up almost immediately before the follow up swing can crush him into paste.

The quick movement hurts, and it snaps him into focus, letting himself bounce back to his feet and head towards the right. Desmond let’s his training take over, and-

_slides under the guards clumsy swing, grinning through exertion as he snatches up a piece of wood, and spins to drive it under the guards chin, snapping it up and back, armor dinging like he’s hit a piece of cheap tin-_

The robot stumbles back, neck at an awkward angle and lights in it’s face-lenses flickering as it tried to solve this _problem_ , and Desmond follows, swinging his piece of rebar around until the concrete hanging onto the end of it meets solidly with the steel casing.

The neck goes at a further angle, and the robot starts milling it’s arms uselessly, broken noises and whirring coming out of it’s armor like a broken furby.  
It doesn’t seem like it’s going to be doing much else for a while, and Desmond gives it one- okay, _five_ \- more whacks with the rebar, each one causing sparks to fly out of the join in it’s neck and chassis. His hand is numb with the impacts, but he doesn’t stop until the head finally comes off in a shower of sparks, a small whining drone going up and up and _up_ in pitch, until it cuts out with a short squawk like a CB radio, the head rolling to a stop a few feet away, the body swaying uncertainly on its feet.

Desmond hauls back and swings one more time, knocking the thing to the ground with a _crash_ , suddenly thankful for all of those pull ups Altair made him do as it goes down, and stays down.

There’s silence except for the faint crackling of a fire across the room,a nd sirens wailing in the distance outside. 

Shaun and Rebecca peer their heads over the seats at Desmond, who’s panting and holding his arm. The piece of rebar hits the ground with a _thud_ , and he’s right after it, taking a heavy seat on the rubble strewn ground, stretching his arm out and wincing.

“So.” Shaun begins flatly, standing and brushing himself off. “Take on a lot of robots in renaissance Italy, have you?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rebecca is tickled _stupid_ by the robot, and even though they only have a few brief moments to strip it, she pulls out a small utility knife and goes to work the best she can. She hums while she works, interspersed with swears and thunks as she smacks the metal with her wrench.

Desmond loves that about her; scared out of her mind one minute, ready to take advantage of the lack of authority figures in the vicinity the next. He thinks of what she must have been like as a kid, always getting into things and taking them apart, and has to fight down the smile.

“The main thing I need is this things _power source_.” She says around a mouthful of hex-pegs, wrist deep in machinery and trying not to get shocked. “Thank god for Justin Hammers blatant plagiarism, because _baby’s getting an arc reactor._ ” She cackles, just a touch maniacally, and Desmond wisely keeps his mouth shut, holding the sheet of metal away from her busy hands and helpfully pointing out key points in the circuitry that light up gold for him.  
She keeps shushing him, but also uses his tips, giving him a glare when the machinery parts more easily for her.

Desmond shrugs.

Shaun shoots them both a ‘hurry-up’ gesture, a fussy flap of his hands that had Desmond arching an eyebrow incredulously at him. “Better work faster. I’m picking up police chatter.” Shaun’s on guard with his cell phone, blue tooth in ear, and halfway out the front doors, making sure that authorities (or, god forbid, _Black Widow_ ), don’t come knocking until they’re done.

Okay, so Desmond’s a little fond of them _both._

“We’ll be outta here in just a moment, let me just-” Rebecca trails off with a grunt of exertion, and there’s a small squealing, ripping noise as her gloved hand comes up with what looks like a fistful of lightning, glowing brightly and folded into a small hoop.  
“Got it!” She tightens her hand around it, letting out a small whoop of triumph. “Oh, lord, it’s _beautiful_.” Rebecca breathes, holding it to her chest a moment to get a good look.

“Put it in your tony Stark shrine why don’t you, let’s just _go_.” Shaun prompts, coming over to start kicking their asses into gear, and shoving their things in a satchel.

The reactor’s a little circle of some sort of crystal, banded in strips of metal and glowing such a bright blue that Desmond flicks his eagle vision off with a wince, letting the world go from indigo back to the red-lit disaster of a concert hall.  
It’s pretty, even without alien vision.

Say what you want about his vigilante antics; Tony Stark was kind of a genius.

“Gentlemen, you’re looking at what’s going to power your equipment for the next _hundred_ years, and if you’re boner isn’t as big as mine right now, I don’t know what to do for you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Getting out of the fairgrounds is easier than Desmond thought it’d be; His eagle vision picks them the safest path through the wreckage, the occasional burning car all the light they need to see by as the head east, towards where they left the van.

Rebecca has stowed the energy source in her satchel, as well as a few pieces of tech. Apparently the targeting system in the drone had a _fantastic_ processor for such a shitty hit ratio, and Rebecca insisted she could improve it for the heli-cam she liked to follow Desmond around the city with.

One more robot harasses them, but it already looks ruined by damage from what Rebecca reminds them is _repulsor_ fire, in a swoony sort of voice, and Desmond dispatches it easily with a sharpened piece of car bumper, and a can-do attitude.

He accidentally ruins the reactor inside, but the resulting explosion was pretty cool by itself, even if Becca spent the whole time smacking his arm and swearing.

“And what are you going to do with _two_ reactors, hm? Power your supervillian lair?” Shaun reminds her, grabbing her arm and dragging her away from the smoldering wreckage. She simply makes grabby hands and a whimpering sound in reply. “Just be happy with what you have, and let’s _get the hell out of here_.”

By the time they make it to the van, they have a pretty good idea of what went on, and the later news coverage only confirms it.

Some terrorist with a grudge against Iron Man had hijacked Hammer’s bots (based off of Tony Stark’s design, only one of the _numerous_ charges against him), causing the wreckage, and almost taking the superhero out if Fox news was telling it right.  
(They probably weren’t.)

There’s shaky video coverage of the Expo gardens, lighting up with muzzle flash, and a huge explosion someone caught on their cellphone that had been heard halfway across the island. Iron Man, and the other Iron Man people were calling ‘War Machine’, had taken care of the robots, as well as the bomb threats with a minimum of casualties, and only about twenty or thirty injured civilians.

Three people are dead; Two police officers and a reporter who’d been covering the Expo. They’d been in the concert hall when it had happened, and Desmond flashes back to the few bodies he’d seen lying lifeless under scaffolding, covered in dust and rubble.

 

Desmond tries not to let it bother him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Natasha was very much starting to be annoyed.

“Tell me exactly _how_ SHIELD hasn’t caught this guy yet?” She asks Coulson wearily, lounging in the command center’s surveillance room and flicking through footage. She’d taken her field uniform off, and was back in her secretary duds, makeup touched up and hair pulled back in a messy bun.  
Her night wasn’t anywhere _near_ done, although she was already sick of the whole thing.  
Except for Pepper.  
She would probably _never_ be sick of Pepper.

Coulson stood behind her, effortlessly unruffled and spotless despite the battlefield they’d just been trekking through, reviewing damage and collecting surveillance from the many video sources that had been put up around the expo. Half of them were SHIELDS; The other half were... Requisitioned.

“We’re working on it.” He says flatly, leaning forward over her shoulder to pause the video and leave a small checkpoint at where the man’s face and his companions are turned towards the camera. They’re working on getting a composite detailed enough for facial recognition; But it’s slow going, especially with the scrambling feed Natasha suspected the woman of their group was responsible for.

 

She’d had to make the tough decision of whether or not to _viciously_ apprehend the mystery assailant she’d met in Stark industries, who was now _mysteriously_ at another Stark function; or help Pepper to take care of the whole Hammer situation.

It hadn’t been much of a choice, but she still had a small hairline-scar on her cheek that reminded her that she was going to get this guy eventually.

It had been a _very_ hard choice.

“The best we can do is keep an eye out and hope they pop up on some traffic camera somewhere; I have a small team working on it.” Coulson informs her, resting a hand on Natasha shoulder. He knows his team; And he knows that Natasha, more so than Clint, _hates_ losing.  
Coulson and her are very similar in that respect, although most wouldn’t know it to look at him.

She doesn’t shake it off, which is more than most people get.

“As soon as you find them, I want on the team.” She doesn’t remove her eyes from the screen, the glow making her look wooden and expressionless. Coulson just squeezes lightly, knowing that she was slightly upset, and seeking comfort. (Most people but him and Clint wouldn’t know, but that was what a team was for, after all.)

“It’d yours.” He hums back pleasantly, removing his hand and saving the spot on the video feed.

Natasha blows air out of her mouth, unimpressed, and kicks her chair back, stretching her arms behind her head. “They’re either HYDRA, some sort of mercenary group we don’t know about, or something else.”

“We have some theories.” Coulson says, taking a seat in the other rolling chair so he can better catalogue the footage. “We’ve been following rumors of an organization with similar qualities for quite a while now. It’ all very hush-hush; We can never get more than whispers on the wind. But if this guy _is_ with them, he doesn’t have nearly enough resources. Stealing an arc reactor?” He pauses the footage on the grainy image of the three taking apart one of the Hammer-drones; the faint blue glimmer of a reactor visible between their bodies. “It’s a little desperate.”

Stark was pretty upset that one had escaped cleanup; Not nearly as upset as Fury; But he didn’t know that yet.

“They’re not nearly up to Stark’s reactor standards- No vibranium. Palladium. They’re like cheap Wal-mart knock off’s.” Coulson says pleasantly. “But enough to power equipment without drawing off of the power grid; not to mention the weapons they could make. But it also has a radioactive signature. Easy to trace, if we can get them to take it outside whatever satellite scrambling equipment they have set up.”

Natasha nods and gets up, smoothing her skirt out, already dreading the rest of her night helping Pepper take care of the _mountains_ of PR work in her office.  
“I want on that team.” She reminds him, and Coulson nods, waving airily at her.

“You’ll get even, don’t worry.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, sorry how long these are taking to come out, but I'm trying to keep it as a stress-free thing. (And it is, I'm having a great time making this.)  
> If it seems like I'm skimming over some parts, it's because I'm just as eager to get to the Avenger/Desmond interactions as you guys are; I just feel like there's a LOT of set up I have to get out of the way.  
> Should this have been made into a series rather than one work? Maybe. MAYBE.  
> But we're all learning something here; Me, most notably, how to write.  
> I think I can look at the first chapter and these latest ones and notice a real difference, so thank you everyone for the help and critique!

Things start happening fast for them after that.

 

With the energy from the reactor, Rebecca’s inventing grows exponentially.  
Where before, she was struggling to keep them all outfitted enough to just _avoid_ Templars (and other unwanted guests), now she’s making them new processors for the scanning equipment, and powers enough soldering and computer equipment that she can make make alterations to their equipment without the draw on the electric grid giving them away.

She makes new climbing gear for Desmond, new processing equipment for the archives of Animus information, new communications relays to get in touch with the Assassins (increasingly infrequent contacts; Desmond’s starting to suspect that they know what Shaun and Rebecca are doing isn’t _entirely_ kosher), and even sketches up plans for a new Animus.

(Desmond makes it clear what he thinks of _that_ , with balled fists and slightly shaking hands, and she holds her hands up in defeat, filing it away in her computer where she doesn’t touch it again.)

Before, she’d sat with a soldering tool, some iron clasps, five different pairs of shoes and fifty dollars worth of climbing equipment, before she finally had a working climbing shoe prototype viable enough to work.

Now, she makes him a new pair after her midnight cup of coffee, and finishes running a debugging program on every stolen electronic they owned.

 

It’s only Shaun’s concerned cups of tea at her elbow, and Desmond’s forcible dragging of her to the kitchen that reminds her to eat and sleep.

 

The van gets totally rehauled, the reactor put in as a battery and outlets put into the dash and running through the chassis for them to hook equipment up to. Better audio and visual, police scanners, cleaner energy rate and the best scramblers money (Desmond’s illicit activities) can buy.

“They don’t just _scramble_ , they also generate information to take it’s place, so we’re not just one big tangle of information on the grid. People can track blank spots; We’re a needle in a haystack.” She informs them smugly, elbow deep in an engine block, with so much grease in her hair and on her face that it’s sticking up straight.

Her grin is splitting her face, and although she has deep circles under her eyes, Desmond doesn’t think he’s ever seen her happier.

Desmond just nods like he understands, and keeps doing push ups.

 

His training picks up as well; him and Shaun take the occasional odd jobs while Rebecca continues her renovation frenzy. Most of them through Martin.  
(Who is _smitten_ with Shaun; Apparently the constant verbal abuse sets his heart a flutter.  
Much to Shaun’s discomfort).

Desmond refuses to take another STARK industries job; That ship has _sailed_. But they still need money; and there’s plenty of _other_ , less secure businesses just asking to be taken down a peg.

 

“Listen, loathe as I am to admit it, saving the world is _not_ a lucrative business.” Shaun tells Desmond conversationally, while they wash their socks in the sink for the third time that month.  
It’s elbow room only, since their communal bathroom was formerly the tiny employee restroom in a warehouse- Not exactly five star accommodations.

Desmond’s already shirtless, his hoodie drying over the shower-rack, and his least favorite pair of sweats tied loosely on his hips while he gives the rest of his jeans a good- If not _wash_ \- solid rinse.

Shaun looks a little red while he talks, and is furiously taking to his button-up with a scrub, not looking at Desmond in a _very_ pointed way.  
Desmond graciously ignores this.

“We need some form of income beyond... _Pickpocketing._ ” He manages to keep most of the derision out of his voice; Probably since Desmond’s the one that feeds his carbonated tea addiction. “Not only does it draw attention, but it’s a good way to get the authorities involved.

“Me and Rebecca between the two of us have a good idea of what companies and businessmen are taking Templar money.” Shaun wrings the shirt out, twisting it around white knuckles, until it’s merely _dripping_ , rather than sopping wet, and slaps it over the shower curtain with the rest. “We can always give them some... Karmic repercussions.”

“That seems a little underhanded, don’t you think?” Desmond’s smiling though, because it seems like _just_ the right source of income for their little guerilla-Creed of Three.

_‘Seven.’_ Clay points out gleefully, while Shaun continues to outline his and Rebecca’s late-night computer work. ‘Please _let me take lead. Just_ once. _I want to break a templars nose with my_ head.’

Desmond wrings his socks out without answering Clay, and decides to limit their Desmond-bed-time movies to pg-13. No more Liam Neeson, jeez.

He starts to unbutton his pants, deciding he’d better get all of the laundry out of the way at once; But he’s stopped by a choked cough, and starts violently when Shaun shoots up like he’s been burned, fumbling with his glasses, face red.

“I have to- Check a program I left running. Out there. Rebecca did you call?-” His voice trails off as he leaves the bathroom so fast, Desmond can practically see his outline in the dust.  
There’s a brief, stunned silence.

_‘Such a peculiar man. I wish he’d let me show him how to at least exit a room properly.’_ Altair mourns, as Desmond gives the door an exasperated glare, and keeps stripping.

 

The jobs they end up taking in the next few months give them money to spend; As well as a certain amount of notoriety that Desmond’s not sure he’s comfortable with.

They use pseudonyms and false bank accounts; But it still doesn’t change the fact that word gets around to the different mercenary factions that if you need something done with finesse, in and out without being seen, there’s a new player in town that can get it done.

Rebecca leaves enough false trails and rumors on the net to lead their trail away from Manhattan. Added on to the fact that Shaun and him make sure to take the van as far as they need for jobs; From Philly, all the way to the four hour drive to Wisconsin; it’s hard to pinpoint where their base of operations are at. The only person who nows they’re here is Martin, and maybe the Widow; and Desmond’s sworn Martin to silence.

He’s not going to be tattling any time soon; not while he’s having first dibs on all the jobs Desmond and his team take.

 

If Desmond wasn’t absolutely sure he was awake -and he _is_ absolutely sure he’s awake, he _is_ \- He’d think he was in someone else’s memories;

As he takes out a guard with a hidden blade to the throat and feels the warm spread across his sleeve, on his way to download security plans from Hammertech, he thinks; This isn’t real.

There’s no way his life went from bartending, pickpocketing and avoiding his past; to- to _corporate espionage_.

Desmond kills people; and can’t bring himself to feel too guilty about it.

Every single one is red in his eagle vision, which he’s coming to find almost never steers him wrong. The first time he tries to avoid killing someone, he get’s a bullet hole through the hood of his jacket right beside his ear for his trouble, and a half hour lecture from Ezio.

Soon enough he’s getting paid for it, and can’t bring himself to refuse; Not when it’s embezzlers and child laborers, Templars, people who the world would be better off without.

Where his Eagle vision isn’t available, Rebecca and Shaun are all too happy to point his blades in the right direction, in between their searches for First Civilization Artifacts.

The first time he manages to procure one, a small cube the size of an ipod that apparently held enough biochemical feedback to take out the population of Alaska when activated, taken from the bloody hand of a Templar in his penthouse office;

He can’t say he regrets it. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Of course, all of the upgrades and training doesn’t change the fact that someone’s catching on.  
Possibly more than one someone, judging by how often Desmond is being fucking _stalked_.

Say what you want about him being stupid enough to be roofied at his _own  
bar_ , and then subsequently kidnapped; It made a guy cautious.

Which was why as soon as anybody got even _close_ to them, he was on it like a soccer mom on black friday. They manage to stay one step ahead; Switching vehicles, buroughs; Rebecca grows her hair out. Desmond keeps a little of the beard, but short.

Shaun gets contacts, and dyes his hair black, and Rebecca and Desmond make so many endless sexy-brunette jokes involving the three of them, that he almost dyes it back.

It’s only two weeks that they make it in the next place, but not because they get discovered, to Rebecca’s mixed satisfaction.

It’s because their block gets trashed by aliens.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Desmond’s actually not on a mission when it happens.

He’s standing outside a deli counter, arguing with the man behind it in Arabic on whether or not he has to be carded to buy a damn beer to go with his lamb flatbread, _you didn’t card the last five people who were here you asshole, and you’re going to card me?_ ; when there’s a small murmur of movement around them, people starting to get up and peer into the sky.

Desmond ignores it in favor flipping the guy off, and retreats sullenly with his sandwich and a lemonade, sour cream already smeared across his chin.  
He swipes at it and licks it off of his finger, ignoring the woman that almost bumps into him, as she walks backwards, talking fast on the phone.

Someone next to him takes out their phone and lifts the glasses off of their face to get a better view of the sky, snapping some pictures.

Desmond looks around warily, and sees about ten other people all doing the same thing. A few cops car whizz by, sirens blaring as Desmond takes another, slightly more thoughtful bite of his sandwich.

Everyone seems to be quietly panicking, a few people starting to gather their bags and hurry in the other direction, towards the bridge.

He finally thinks to look up, and promptly chokes on flatbread.

There’s a rippling, twisting, _thing_ , above Stark Tower, some sort of light coming up and just _stopping_ at a point hundreds of feet above the top of the tower, spreading open like some cheap scifi special effect.

For a moment he reasons it must be Stark doing something insane again; Some new invention, or a stupid superhero thing, but he sees small figures start to pour out, like a swarm of insects, and realizes that this isn’t supposed to be possible.

An actual alien invasion.

 

_‘Okay,_ this, _is worthy of skepticism.’_

 

Someone screams and about knocks him down, but he ignores it in favor of fumbling out his phone, eyes locked on the large wormhole opening up above STARK tower.

It’s huge, and he thinks he can hear a subsonic humming in the air, driven by the wind down in between the buildings.  
He has to blink the stars from his eyes when he looks at it in eagle vision- all gold, and _very_ bright.

The phone clicks to voicemail.

“Hi! You’ve reached Empire Shipping!” Rebecca’s voice comes in cheerful and tinny. “If you have something you’d like delivered, press 1! If you need something retrieved, press 2! If you have a complaint, or would like to speak to a supervisor, please press 3!”  
She thought it’d be funny to route them to Shaun.

Desmond hangs up, and texts her instead, barely able to take his eyes off of the gaping, star-strewn tear in the sky. 

He starts to think of what he needs to do. Head back to the base?

Maybe.

He slowly starts towards Stark tower, tucking his phone in his pocket.

_‘You remember what happened last time you got yourself involved in things that didn’t concern you, novice?’_

“Yep.” Desmond says, rolling his sleeves up, and pulling the extra long collar on his shirt up and over his mouth. It had small loops that fix over his ears, and clip into his hood. It stayed put when he wanted it to, and in addition to goggles, did a great job of making him unrecognizable. “People died.”

 _‘Nobody who concerned you. Nobody you care about.’_ Altair’s voice is even, and for once, Desmond’s not sure what the older Assassin is implying, despite the shared brain space.

He thinks of the still bodies laying in the Stark Expo hall, as they made their way out through the rubble and distant sounds of explosions. He saved Rebecca and Shaun; But how about the others? The news said three people were killed; And he remembers seeing a hand, pale and dusted with rubble, laying out from underneath a piece of building.

He see’s a mother go by with her kid, tugging him along by the hand and talking quickly on her phone, and thinks, who’s going to help them?

“Well. I have to try, don’t I?” Desmond rolls his other sleeve up, and no one notices him walking against the throng of people all streaming the other way. His blades snick out just as he see’s the first- first _thing_ \- swoop into view.

“That’s the creed right? No innocents can come to harm?”

There’s a rising hum and a sharp _crack_ as light shoots from the front of the insect-like aliens vehicle, the loud _boom_ as a car is flipped causing Desmond to stumble. He picks himself back up, ducking under the first alien who misses him entirely, and setting his sights in the next one, eyes narrowed and flashing gold, the red outline speeding towards him with shimmers of gold on the back between the shoulders, just the right shape for his blades-

He starts into a run, and he ignores the smug feeling of approval coming from Altair as he makes it to the first taxi in a row of parked cars, the driver leaning out and yelling at him as he gets some height, and _springs_ -

 

In the grand scheme of things, Desmond is very firm in saying that taking command of an alien robot hover scooter is in the top ten coolest things he’s ever done in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is interested in editing, shoot me a message on tumblr, I'm spectralsleuth. Or if you just want to talk about Avengers, Assassins creed, problems you have with my writing, or just how your day was. :3c


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so I'm already making plans to rewrite this whole thing. (Hahaha not because of _horrible_ continuity screw ups, _no siree_.) But I'm going to try and plug along and finish this _beta_ , if you will. Or at least get it to a good stopping point as a placeholder!
> 
> Thank you everyone who's offered me help and critique, or left such nice comments! I've learned a lot doing this, but sadly, it's also made the many many errors I've made sort of glaringly obvious, and I feel like I can do better.

Desmond manages to get his knives in the things neck, the scooter wavering and then starting to spin dizzily as the creature started reaching back with clawed hands. A high pitched rattling was coming from it’s neck, that Desmond was pretty sure was some kind of language. He wasn't an expert, but it was probably something close to, _'What the fuck-'_

Desmond hung on grimly, getting a better grip, his eagle vision turning the fast whipping by of buildings into an indigo blur interspersed with white and gold, eyes watering, until he finally managed to jerk one of the blades into something that made the creature spasm, the scooter rolling onto it’s side like a floundering fish and still speeding along like a runaway train-

There’s a white blur and he jumps for it, splashing safely into a fountain as the scooter continues on to smash heavily into the ground, spinning to a smoldering stop against a Bank of America.

Desmond gets his face above the water and spits dirty fountain out of his mouth, grimacing at the taste.

He misses bales of convenient hay.

_‘Not bad novice. Now, just a legion left.’_

He sits in the fountain for a brief moment, double checking to make sure his face-covering was still in place, and just in general be sorry for himself.

_Shut up. I have a plan.’_

Desmond gets out, dripping, wishing bitterly for something to jump into that _didn’t_ make him wet and miserable for the next half hour. If he has to jump in one more fountain- The bike is still smoldering gently as he gets close. The alien's thrown up against the building like a car accident, arm outstretched and motionless-

The alien abruptly sits up out of the wreckage, hissing and rattling furiously, and Desmond jumps back in surprise, dodging the thing’s gun as it swung the butt at him. It starts to get up, staggering, and he kicks it back down, giving a quick jab in retaliation. The blade sinks into it’s side, and thankfully, hits something vital.

It collapses again, and Desmond warily keeps his distance, crouching a couple feet away, heart still pounding.

He throws a rock at it; when it doesn’t get up again, he calls it a job well done.

He wanders over to the bike, and kicks it curiously.

It’s dead and dim; Whatever made it run must be related to the same glowing of the aliens weapons.

_‘Does it not have a key?’_ Ezio asks hopefully, and Desmond starts checking the ground around for anything that looks like it might make it run. Maybe this weird looking piece of shrapnel?

_’We do not have time for your ridiculous flying fixation-’_ Altair starts disapprovingly.

 _’We can let the boy decide that! After all, it may be useful_ ucellino-’

Ezio retorts, sounding almost petulant.

“Shut up!" Desmond snaps. "Christ, just-” Desmond thunks a hand against his head irritably, squeezing his eyes shut, and it falls silent . Besides the distant explosions.

“I’m taking care of this myself. Shut up.” He says with finality, holding a finger up.

There’s a sullen silence, and he nods in satisfaction, giving up the scooter as a lost cause, and continuing on towards the sounds of the most explosions.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He’s not exactly trained for this.

Desmond is just a normal guy-

Ok, _slightly_ normal guy.  
The eagle vision could definitely not just be waved off. (Was it some sort of psychic imprint? Sixth sense? He still wasn’t sure; And neither was anyone else, Altair and Ezio included.)

But bottom line, he was an assassin. He went in and out, and preferred not to be seen. If he was, he’d run- And if running didn’t work, he’d fight. But only as a last resort.

Which is why he wasn’t exactly equipped to help in situations like this. He refused to admit Altair was right- It set a bad precedent.

He had to try to help _somehow_. He couldn’t even picture turning around and running back to base to- What? To hunker down and wait for it to blow over?

Yeah. He didn’t think so.

 

The distant sounds of snuffles and muffed crying was the loudest sounds in the building, besides the distant crumbling of mortar, and the grunts and clicks coming from the aliens. He wasn’t sure what happened to the power running to this hotel, but it was long gone.

Desmond crouched behind a pillar, the mask covering his face doing a pretty good job of filtering out the dust and smoke. The only light was the shafts of sunlight coming in through the broken windows, shining down on the couple dozen people all gathered- _corralled_ \- in the hotels lobby. They were scared and grimy, a couple people nursing what looked like hurt limbs, or cuts and bruises. But they weren’t too worse for the wear.  
At least ten were kids.

The aliens didn’t seem worried anyone was going to run- There was the smoldering body of a security guard laying near the front doors as a reminder to the rest.

 

Desmond wasn’t sure why they’d bother to gather all of these people here- but he doubted it was good. He’d taken out about five more aliens in the open on the way through the city, heading down main street towards the main action- If not to help, at least see what was going on.

A couple had gone overhead on those flying scooter’s; but he hadn’t managed to bring any more down, feeling like an overgrown cat as he watched them, eyes narrowed and judging distances between different cars and architecture to see if he could possibly make it to them.

He’d whiffed uselessly by one, the alien looking briefly surprised, and hadn’t even tried with the next two.

At least there had been plenty of ground-bound infantry to whet his frustration on;  
He didn’t _want_ a flying scooter anyway, whatever.

Desmond had been doing a pretty good job of helping people cornered by the enemy, directing them towards the nearest police line he knew of, and helping to get others out of cars and rubble; Once again, he found himself thanking Altair for all of those pull-ups he’d been doing.

But that had ground to a halt when he’d been distracted by the sight of one of those huge, tank looking things dragging a woman in here by the arm, her head bleeding sluggishly.

 

Desmond narrowed his eyes, the whole area glowing a restricted red, the faint indigo outlines of enemies inside, as well as the pale blue crowd of people they were surrounding.

Guess it was time to put some of that training to the test.

He’d scaled the outside easily, busting a window with a brick, and sneaking around towards the north end of the building using the baroque-esque rafters and ostentatious crown molding around the ceiling.

(He thought he saw someone in the crowd look up when his foot loosened a piece of rubble- pattering down to land among the crowd. But they’re silhouette stayed glowing blue, so he simply paused a moment before continuing.)

There were three underneath him, guarding the entrance. There was one more to the south, blocking the entrance to the elevators and stairs, and a last two against either wall of the lobby- No doubt standing guard.

Desmond made it quick before he thought too hard about it.

He dropped down and got the first silently, it’s heavy chitin scraping against his knees as he dropped the ten feet down onto it’s head, knife sliding home without any noise.

He didn’t pause, rolling off and getting the second in the neck, following it down in the same motion to keep it’s struggling quiet, his eyes locked on the third, who hadn’t yet noticed anything. It’s silhouette started pulsing faintly though; It was starting to notice.

He got off the second, it’s neck pumping out blue, and moved the last few feet to slide the blade home at the base of the thirds neck, its clawed hand coming up to scrabble uselessly as Desmond yanked it backwards, breaking it’s fall with his hip and twisting to bring it to the floor, the whole thing silent.

There’s a few people glancing towards him with wide eyes; but beyond a few gasps there’s no shouts, and Desmond starts running before they start to react and give him away, aiming for the two at the north end.

He crouches low behind the crowd, and when one of them turns to see what the muttering in the crowd is about, he misses Desmond as he comes around the crowd, blending best as he can while moving fast, and he manages to get a running start while the aliens back is turned, slamming into his partners back and knocking the two together and into a tangled heap on the floor.

One of the guns goes off before he can kill the bother of them, and it narrowly misses his head, the whine and discharge shooting harmlessly (but loudly) into the ceiling.

The last one by the doors started bellowing as Desmond finished off the two underneath him.

He rolled behind a pillar as the building whine alerted him to danger, and sure enough a crater appeared int he floor where he’d just been. He’s not quite fast enough to bring his hand up, and Desmond feels the concrete hit his face, stinging his eyebrow, and a large-ish chunk hitting his face.

“Motherf-”

He brought a hand up, clasping his mouth where red was seeping out, and glared around the pillar at the last asshole, who was weaving around the now screaming crowd to get a better shot at Desmond.

_‘Allow me.’_

Desmond let his muscles relax without thinking about it, and Altair rolled out from behind the pillar, blue blood arcing from his blade to spatter against the floor as he gathered his feet underneath him and took off towards the alien in a blur of motion.

Desmond was closest in original size to Altair; smaller than the other Assassins had been, and it made it easier for Altair to navigate in his body.

He jittered sideways to avoid the first shot, jumped and spun to avoid the second, and came down with his knife to make a slash across the face, the alien howling in pain and collapsing backwards, it’s twisted metal-looking features twisted and open to the bone.

He followed it with a kick, and kneeled against it’s struggling torso, sinking his blade into it’s neck.

 

Desmond took back over with a grimace, feeling the faint strain in his legs after the burst of motion that his body wasn’t quite accustomed to; As well as the blue blood caking his arms up to the elbow.

Everybody was already streaming out of the building, kind of loudy. Some of them paused as if to say something.

Desmond stood up and wiped the blood off of his face, where the blue had pooled around his eyes, and permanently stained his mask.

They looked alarmed and kept walking, stumbling out the broken glass doors into the smoke-filtered sunlight outside.

_’A bit ungrateful.’_ Altair sniffs irritably.

“Yeah, well we didn’t do it for the thanks.” Desmond says wearily, bending down to rifle through the aliens stuff. They had these weird, chitinous pod-pouch thingies, and he was damned if he didn’t get some cool toys to take back to Rebecca.

There was a faint sound of an explosion outside, and Desmond jerked his head up, narrowing his eyes.

The eagle vision didn’t quite make it through the wall, and he stood up, preparing to head outside, when there was a _crash_ over head, and the tinkle of breaking glass that had him rolling out of the way, heart pounding as something landed on the balcony above him. There was a scrabble-sliding sound as they failed to get purchase, and then another heavy _whump_ as they hit the floor behind him.

Desmond stood up at the same time as the huge guy in front of him, and for a minute he wasn’t sure he was seeing right.

Captain America just flew in through the window.

The guy was big, Desmond noted, as he staggered upright, shield hanging loosely from his hand as he shook his head to clear it, looking around. There was a small amount of blood snaking from his left temple; Didn’t he wear any sort of helmet?

He was blonde, hilariously. The outfit looked slightly more modern than what was depicted in the comics or old war reels; A lot more armoring, it looked like. But the same red white and blue, albeit sightly ragged looking by this point. He was about six foot and some change, with shoulders half again as wide as Desmond's, and muscles to make a school girl blush.

_'To make_ me _blush,_ grazie gesù.'

Desmond was frozen, not really able to move despite Altair’s urging and Clay’s hysterical laughing. There wasn't anywhere close by to hid unless he wanted to make a _very_ dramatic dive for cover. Which would defeat the purpose. So he stood frozen by indecision as Captain America got heavily to his feet, panting, and gave a small stretch to make sure everything was working properly. The shield was in one arm; He used it to break his fall? The sound of a hover scooter outside charging up woke Desmond from his revery, and a couple more crashes followed as more aliens followed their quarry through what remained of the window. It shook both of them out of it; Captain America finally turned as if to go outside, and drew up short when he saw Desmond standing there. Like a goon.

Desmond took a moment to be briefly self-conscious about how he looked;  
His jacket and cowl covered in dust and the whole front splashed blue, soaked up to the elbow. His mask a faint purple, the blood from his cut face mingling from where some arterial spray had gotten him in the face. The hidden blade, his sleeve rolled up to reveal how chipped and worn it was at this point after taking on alien metal all day.

The multiple alien bodies strewn around the banks lobby.

“Uh.”

Captain America ( _ **'Captain America.'**_ Clay said again, just to drive the point home) looked briefly confused, and opened his mouth to say something.

Of course, that's when the large, hostile aliens jumped down from the balcony above, the sudden whine of their weapons charging and the clashing of the metal, chitinous armor briefly deafening. Captain America lifted his shield in time to bounce one of the lasers off of it, staggering backwards. The rebound chipped off another large chunk of the already battered bank, causing Desmond to duck as it shattered kind of close to him.

Thankfully, they were so distracted by the american icon, that Desmond could simply step up behind the rear one, and swiftly wrap an arm around it's neck.

Never let it be said he didn’t do his part for his country.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“So.... Who are you?”

Desmond cleans the blood off of his blade with the most un-stained part of his jacket, looking up in surprise at the Captain addressing him.

Talking to _him_.  
He tries not to let his inner fanboy out; he read all of the Captain America comics as a kid, sneaking out of the compound to spend hours at the comic shop, ignoring the pointed looks of the store owner as he devoured issue after issue.

Of course, most kids his age read them. The publishing really took off in the late eighties.

He didn’t know a single kid who _didn’t_ want to grow up to be just like Captain America; himself included. In retrospect, it probably might have had something to do with his reluctance to become an Assassin.

“Um.” He scrambles his brain frantically. The Captain’s still staring at him. Shit.  
“Altair.” He says finally, if a bit hesitantly. “...Kaczmarek.” He adds.

The Captain looks at him skeptically. Desmond lifts his chin slightly. “Family name. Very traditional.”

“Alright... Mister Kaczmarek.” The Captain swings a shoulder out, wincing. He probably landed on it wrong, Desmond thinks, glancing up at the window he’s come busting in through. No doubt thrown by an explosion, if the comics were anything to go by.

 

The ten or so aliens around them are _decimated_ , and Desmond doesn’t think he’s even seen the Widow move as fast as he just saw this guy move, dispatching the first two with one swing of his shield, the hard metal disc bouncing off of two walls and a pillar while the guy had punched out one more alien, twisting his hip and throwing the alien to the ground hard enough to crack the granite flooring,and then lifting his hand to catch the shield as it came back.

If Desmond hadn’t been looking right at him, or if he’d blinked, he would’ve missed it.

Desmond had tried hard not to stand and gape, and dispatched the second alien, launching himself off of it to his third, as it turned and took notice of him, blaring it’s alarm slightly too late as the blade blade sunk home.

And then the Captain had been a big blue blur of motion dispatching the rest, leaving Desmond trying to hold a struggling alien down long enough to find something to stab that would make it _stop smacking his face_ , and feeling faintly useless.

Also a little faintly star-struck.

 

So now he’s standing in front of an actual superhero covered in alien slime, with two jammed fingers, and what feels like a dozen cuts and bruises.

“Steve Rogers.” Captain America holds his hand out, and Desmond is thanking _god_ he’s wearing a mask over the lower half of his face, because he’s probably _blushing_ , holy shit.

_’I would totally be teasing you right now, but holy shit it’s Captain America.’_ Clay has been repeating for about the last five minutes. Even Altair is impressed enough to be silent.

Connor just seems faintly nauseous at the gaudy costume, but he’s holding his silence for now.

Quick. Gotta say something. “So... Aliens.”

Shit. Fuck.

There’s no reply; Captain America is inspecting the tear in his suit that looks slightly bloody, poking it gingerly, before grimacing and simply ripping some of the torn, dangling fabric off. Somehow he’s managed to keep mostly clean, except for a metric ton of soot, and some splashes of red.

Meanwhile Desmond feels like he just finished murdering a blueberry patch.

Rogers slings his shield onto his back, running a hand through his hair and looking briefly tired, the soot sticking it up on end, before starting towards the door, boots crunching over the rubble and smashed granite flooring.

“Uh- Hey! Wait a minute-”

“You want to help?” Rogers says without looking at him as they go out into the sunlight, Desmond blinking away his eagle-vision blearily. He nods hesitantly, and the Captain whirls on him, mouth set.

“I can tell you’re not exactly a common civilian. Altair, was it?” Points to the wonderbread, the pronunciation wasn’t bad.

Desmond tries not to look guilty.

Or like he kills people for a living.

“If you want to help? Keep doing what you’re doing. The police aren’t going to be able to keep up with this level of destruction- There’s barricades set up all the way back to fifth, so evacuate people that way.” He looks Desmond up and down briefly. “Stay away from Stark tower- Let the Avengers handle that.”

Okay, Captain America giving you an order, be cool.

 _‘Hahahaha oh my god.’_  
Clay, _shut up._

 

He claps Desmond on the shoulder, and spins on his heel, breaking into a job as he heads up main street.

Desmond is briefly silent.

“Who the fuck are the Avengers?!” He finally yells after him, but the Captain’s already rounded a corner, and his voice echoes sullenly off of the buildings around him. 

He thinks for a minute, while the desiccated ruin of a honda burns cheerfully about eight feet away.

_”Isn’t Captain America supposed to be dead?_ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, but since I _know_ you guys appreciate silly, unlikely crossovers, I can recommend some of my favorites to hold you over until I update.  
>  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> http://spectralsleuth.tumblr.com/post/64439307776/crossover-fic-recs
> 
> Also, message me with any questions you may have, or if you just want to chat!(*cough or if anyone wants to beta/edit cough*)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, haven't update in a while. I'm working on some other things, as well as Dragon Age 2. (Inquisition, I _will have you._ )
> 
> But here's something that I've been planning for awhile, but haven't gotten around to posting! Sorry if anything seems rushed. Any mistakes are mine, since I have no one to edit, and I barely edit myself. (I'm sure it shows)

Rebecca and Shaun don’t believe him for the whole length of time it takes them to pack up, destroy the files they couldn’t take with them, and relocate to a _different_ abandoned warehouse in Manhattan. A total of two days or so, drastically slow if Shaun’s hand wringing, and long peeks out the windows are anything to go by.

Desmond’s still limping, and his arm is still wrapped where he’d twisted his wrist. Not to mention the _laser burn_ he has on his side, where it’d caught him along his ribs. Miraculously, it’d simply burned a furrow into his side, missing anything vital. But it’s deep, and hurts like a bitch.

So he’s not in the best of moods to begin with.

“Captain America is dead.” Shaun grunts, and heaves his box into the back, shirt stuck to his damp back from the work they’d been doing all morning. “Went down in the Atlantic in the forties.” Shaun reminds him, yet again, as he shakes feeling back into his fingers.

Rebecca is vetting a call from William, and looking more and more upset as time goes on, pacing the floor of the warehouse, now empty and dusty, and running her hand repeatedly through her hair.

“Ok, yeah, I _know_ that.” Desmond snorts in annoyance, easily hefting the heavier box in his arms and sliding it behind Shaun’s. He’s probably in the best shape of his life at the moment, and it shows. Rebecca keeps asking him to move things for her; And, as Clay points out, half of the shit doesn’t need to go anywhere in the first place.

 

He doesn’t mind.

Far from it, he hams it up occasionally, flexing, and on one memorable occasion, taking his shirt off.

There’d been a loud clatter and a crash, and he’d turned in time to see Rebecca’s burning ears as she buried her nose in a book, and Shaun swiftly turning and leaving the room.

Ezio had been very gratified.

 

“But either your info is wrong, he’s an imposter, or-“  
Desmond cuts himself off, and throws a glare down at his hands, which are resting idly on the door of the van. One is scarred, with thick, ropy burns .(And probably always will be; the healing was done.) The fingernails had come in slightly, but it was still... Jarring. 

The thick scar tissue had managed to stay malleable as Desmond exercised it, instructed (aggressively) by Seung. He’d dutifully squeezed rubber balls and wrote lines with a big, heavy marker until he felt like his hand was going to fall off at the wrist. He’d even done the regimen of acupuncture, tense and miserable for two hours three times a week while Seung _barely_ held onto her hair-trigger temper, and filled him with three inch long needles.

Not his idea of a good time.

 

The result was close to full use of his hand, and about eighty percent of the muscle strength he’d had to start with. Not exactly perfect, but like Seung repeatedly told him, while shaking her head, he’s lucky to have a hand at all.

He pulled a glove out of his pocket in the gap of his silence, jerking it on in an angry movement, and turned to glare at Shaun. “Or I’m hallucinating again. But _that_ can’t be it. Those aliens were _slaughtered_. And there’s no way I could’ve done it by myself, imaginary superhero or no.”

“He’s not imaginary.” Rebecca interrupts, before Shaun can come up with an angry retort. She’s shoving her phone into her pocket, motions terse and angry. She generally was after talking with Miles.

“The order tells me he was there.” She angrily slams the door shut, keys jangling in her hand. Her shoes aren’t even laced up, but she motions for them to pile in anyway. Which they do with great enthusiasm, ready to get out of the dank, empty warehouse.

“There’s a lot going on right now. And we may finally have an idea of who the Black Widow was with.”

Desmond looks at her curiously as he does up his seat belt, gloved left hand slightly clumsy.  
“Have you guys ever heard of SHIELD?”

 

They still do their work.

The next year is different. _Everything’s_ different.

Desmond thought his world was complicated _before_. When he was on the run, a young punk kid who’d been raised to be a killer his whole life, living in New York. When there were Templars, and Assassins.

He’d thought his world was rocked when he found out that there was a machine he could use to go back in time, and live the lives of his ancestors.

When the very same Templars forced him into a machine they didn’t even know how to _work_ entirely, putting his mind and body through the stringer, cameras watching his every move. When he ate. Slept. Had nightmares. Even cameras in the _bathroom_.

When he found blood slathered on the walls and started seeing things he couldn’t explain, it was just the cherry on top.

His world changed _again_ when he saved the world from planetary annihilation. Two years, and he was fighting ancient civilizations, going through the past again to sift out a way to prevent the world from boiling in waves of radiation from the sun.

But now they’re living in a world with _aliens_ , and Captain America, and Iron Man; He sees Black Widow on the news briefly, her hair a flash of red across some shaky New York footage, and has to audibly swallow.

 

This is their world now; Superheroes and monsters. As well as secret government agencies, chasing them around the city like they have nothing better to do.

They’re easy to avoid though; That’s almost like normal. Avoiding the government is something Desmond does as second nature.

They’d move to another location if they could, but there’s always supposed to be a bureau in New York, and they’re the most successful one they have. The higher ups won’t let them move until it’s urgent, and until then, they’re just going to have to lay low.

Desmond doesn’t point out that by the time they see how close they are, a gun’s probably going to be pointed at his head.

 

 

All three of them get closer in the mean time.

He thought that they’d been getting a long well when they’d been in Italy, holding their breath and clustered tight against the wall of a villa as they waited for what looked like an Abstergo car to finish going by.

Or when Rebecca would help him down from the Animus, pressing a juice box into his shaking hands, Shaun whining loudly about some historical injustice or fact he didn’t like that day.

But now he knows their chinese orders and food allergies by heart. He helps Rebecca in the shop as she works on their equipment, handing her things. He fetches things for Shaun around town. Books, flash drives, some coffee, expensive museum manuscripts.

Snacks.

 

It really hits home for him one night, when Rebecca wakes him up from a nightmare some rainy, windswept night in a motel. Gun in one hand, the safety on, the sound of his yelling making her think he was being murdered.

But she stays with him until he goes back to sleep. She rubs his back for a while, thoughtlessly, and he lets the embarrassment burn away while he shuts his eyes and drifts back to sleep.

 

(In his defense, he’d been driving for thirteen hours. And had like, two valium.) 

 

He returns the favor when she has a nervous break down, snapping a keyboard in half as she throws it across the room and buries her face in her hands. Hair greasy from not showering, and her eyes pale and drawn, with dark bruises under them.

 

Desmond ends up scooping her into a big hug, feeds her two sandwiches in quick succession, and puts her to bed. Clothes and all.

_’She’s.. Very small._ Altair says uncomfortably.

Desmond just pulls the blankets up, and turns the lights out.

 

Him and Shaun then proceed to sit outside her door with a book and a Gameboy respectively, drinking tea (that Desmond hates), and swapping their own nervous breakdown stories.  
(Shaun, unsurprisingly, has quite a few. Very high-strung child, he was.)

 

But over all the year is good to them; They retrieve two more artifacts, astonishing William as well as the higher ups. They’d only retrieved about four in the past twenty years, and here they were with _three_ in the space of two years.

With Rebecca running hardware, Shaun on history and research, and Desmond doing what Shaun liked to call “thug work”, they’re nearly unbeatable.

One apple retrieved, as well as another necklace, which opens a cache to god knows where. Shaun is working on it in his spare time; he has it narrowed down to a villa in France, or some giant flat rock in Australia.

 

Through it all, he has the other Assassins in his head. Coming in and out of conversations, offering input, mapping things out for Shaun. It’s weird. Shaun and Rebecca probably don’t know the half of it. Just the sheer _detail_ of the personalities, the memories, freaks Desmond out to no end. Thoughts that aren’t his crossing his mind, like how he never liked the taste of fish. But he _did_. Or how Maria always hated dealing with shopping, but he didn’t _know_ a Maria.

And he was _positive_ at least one of them was gay, because he’d been comfortably straight his whole life. He’s pretty confident of that; after all, he worked in a bar. He;d had his fair share of friendly flirtations with some _very_ attractive people. Of all genders.

But if he checked out _one more jogger_ against his will, he was going to have to do something drastic.

Weird. To say the least.

 

The four of them work out a system; Desmond most of the time, with them each getting a little- “leg room”, as Desmond likes to call it. Hobbies, activities. Walks through town. Desmond almost enjoys them, really. It’s a weird experience being back passenger to his own body, but when he gets use to it, it’s kind of thrilling. They’re all very capable. And he can feel himself slowly adjusting, their gestures and motions homogenizing to a certain extent.

 

They even do some missions. Altair retrieves the Apple, and smugly flips it up and down in the air the whole way back to base, blood staining his sleeves and a pleasant burning in his muscles he hasn’t felt in about four centuries.  
Connor get’s a couple of courier jobs for the maggia, as well as a couple of other Assassin’s bureaus who are moving things through New York.

But Ezio wins the draw at the biggest job they get.

 

They get to take on a freelance job for some green-peace organization calling themselves, creepily enough, the “Hellfire Club.” But their money had been good, _very_ good, and they’d really needed it.

And the job is a milk run. (For them, at least.)

They retrieve some spooky looking painting from behind a fortress of security, as well as two mutant security guards, and drop it off at the point specified. 

One of the guards had been able to see through walls, which had made things _very_ interesting. Ezio had had a ball, diving through doors, leading the security on a merry chase after they had disabled the communications, before finally wrangling the two mutants together in some cable and shoving them in a closet.

Desmond had laughed the whole way home.

 

Currently however, he was negotiating on the phone, something he _hated_ to do. He was firm on his conditions, as a professional. But people _still_ felt the need to haggle.

Desmond frowned into the phone as he nurses one of his fingers, which Ezio had _jammed_ the bastard. “A meeting? You didn’t say anything about a meeting.” He hisses as the pressure of his fingers settles on his opposite hand, ignoring the small questioning sound over the phone that results.

“You have our financial information.” Desmond says firmly, crossing the kitchen to the fridge and digging out what Shaun calls, “Desmond’s Peas”. Since they’re basically used for nothing but icing his jammed fingers, turned ankles, and knocks to the head.

He’s reducing the number of accidents by a lot with practice, but there are still moments.

“We realize this, but we have interest in some future business and would like the chance to… Assess the potentials.” Purrs the lady on the other end; someone named Snow, or Winter or something. Emily?

_’You do a credit to your gender,_ fratello.’

“We don’t do meetings.” Desmond repeats curtly, making a face as he rests the peas on his sore finger. “Thirty grand. That’s the price; If you’re backing out, tell me now so I can make some calls.” Desmond says, making his voice as stony as possible.

There’s a small, annoyed silence from the other end. “This is really a very large opportunity; I understand the need for your privacy.” She doesn’t sound understanding at all, and Desmond inspects his finger critically, letting another annoyed silence drag out. Does he need to see Seung?

Probably not.

“I’m willing to pay another fifty percent if you’d simply _meet_ with us. At a public venue, of course.” She adds, her voice reasonable. Light. “Just myself, personally, with an assistant.” She tried to sound nonchalant. “And a briefcase full of untraceable hundred dollar bills.”

Desmond wavers, chewing on his lip.

 _’That’s a lot of money.’_ One of them say, and Desmond stays silent, thinking of what Rebecca and Shaun would think. 

The woman on the other end hums pleasantly, and he realizes she already knows his answer.

Dammnit.

 

 

Which is why he finds himself at a café at seven in the morning, a week later, wearing sunglasses and the beginnings of a patchy beard. He refused a baseball cap, only because he was of the opinion that it made him look about as shady as the guy selling coke at their bus stop. He _did_ however, deign to wear one of those hideous sweaters all the hipster kids were wearing these days.

 

He sips his cold tea, leg bouncing nervously. It was a fairly popular venue, although eh couldn’t remember the name _exactly_ at the moment. Something about a pit? The Pit maybe? No, that was stupid, maybe it was the den…

He caught sight of a labeled napkin that reminded him it was the Lions Den.

He swallowed some more sub-par tea and grimaced.

 

Desmond hadn’t caught sight of any red silhouettes yet; everyone was a comforting, dull blue. But he didn’t drop his guard. His hidden blades were a comforting tightness on his arms, as well as a gas grenade in his belt.

And he’d watched the barista make his drink very, _very_ carefully.

 _’Holy crap, she’s like, twelve. I don’t think she’s going to slip you a roofie-‘_ Desmond gives the irritable twitch of his head he does when he gets uncolicited advice like this. It doesn’t work very well. Mainly, it makes him look like distracted bird. _‘She probably doesn’t even know what a roofie_ is.’ Clay finishes, impatient for some coffee.

_’If I were a Templar, that’s_ exactly _who I would choose to do the deed.’_ Ezio counters, and Desmond just stares bleakly at the girl. It’s looking fast like one of those days where they just _don’t shut up._

 

The door jingles just as he’s working up the nerve to leave, and he looks up through the line of bodies at the register.

He then has to manually close his jaw, because _jesus._ The woman who just walked in is easily the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen in his life. And he’s actually seen alien goddesses from primeval civilizations.

 

She’s tall, taller than her shorter, more mousy companion, and wearing all white. She’s dazzling in the light of the café windows, and her sunglasses make her an expressionless, pale enigma as she scans the café. Her gaze is like a physical weight, and Desmond can almost follow the line of her attention by the people caught in her gaze.

His heart leaps into his throat. Not necessarily in _attraction_ (although he’s always kind of had a thing for blondes), but mostly in intimidation. ‘Anxiety’ was probably a good word for it. She doesn’t look like she belongs, and is making no effort to be discreet. Call him paranoid, but in Desmond’s experience, the only people with that privilege were generally people he was better off not knowing.

_’An interesting dilemmna you have us in then.’_ Comes Altair’s reproving murmur, and he frowns.

 

The woman looks around, and as soon as she spots Desmond, her eyes brighten and she snaps her fingers, bringing the small, mousier assistant to attention as they cross over to sit with him. She’s wearing heels, and it makes intimidating clicks like the sound of a pistol.

She doesn’t order anything.

“Ibn-La’Ahad.” She offers, taking a seat in the demure, graceful way rich people have, crossing her legs elegantly. Her transparent, dainty heels point towards the floor, and Desmond has trouble dragging his eyes up from the line of her calf and knee.

“Miss Frost.” His tone is brisk. Professional.

He’d started using La’Ahad as a pseudonym, mainly because Altair would in no way be connected to it (probably), and even if he was, no one would _ever_ make the connection. Except maybe to think he was a history enthusiast or something,

Besides, it was funny. Ezio was only slightly more famous, and Connor didn’t want him to use his name anyway, the spoilsport. It didn’t hurt that Desmond looked eastern enough to pull it off. His mother was from Egypt, although her mother had been Italian. Syria and Egypt weren’t exactly neighbors, but the regions were close enough where Desmond was confident in his ability to pull it off.

And he was learning the language anyway.

 

“An interesting man you are. From what I’ve heard so far.” Frost opens after a brief moment of silence, as the mousy assistant seats herself. She looks just as comfortable in business shoes and suit, her glasses simple tortoiseshell. There’s a suitcase in one of her hands, and a cellphone in the other. Smooth, matte black with a keycode on the top. They’re both glowing gold in his eagle vision, but he blinks it away without thinking. “And our reports are very detailed. You’ve done some very good work for us.”

“Not so interesting as to keep you entertained for much longer Miss Frost.” He replies easily, glancing off disinterestedly out the café’s front window. “You have my money, and five minutes of my time.” He almost misses it, but there’s a brief flicker of annoyance across her face, “This is more than most get, so make it quick.” 

Frost is observing him intently, and he struggles to keep his arms relaxed and finger tapping. For some reason, no one else in the café seems interested in their conversation. To an… _unnatural_ extent. Or even interested Frost herself, Which Desmond finds most astonishing. She’s _very_ noticeable. The lace up top, and white leather coat are a piece of work by themselves, not to mention what’s spilling out of it.

It raises a few flags. Small ones. But still.

 

“The kind of work I’ve done for you is hardly worth this kind of effort.” He states, gesturing to the briefcase with a bored gesture, sipping his tea. “Makes me wonder what you’ve heard that interests you so much.” He let’s the smallest hint of annoyance creep into his voice. Not that it bothers either woman even a little bit.

Frost lets a smile play across her lips. They’re very dark; Mauve? Mulberry? Some kind of wintery, dark color-

Which Desmond drives irritably from his mind. _Irrelevant._

“Well. Hardly anyone ever see’s you in person, and I can’t have _that_. I prefer to make all of our business associates acquaintances at least _once_. In person. And you’re _so_ very hard to get ahold of.”

“I’m here now.” He says evasively, eyes flicking to the window for another scan. He notices her tense slightly out of the corner of his eye as he flips into eagle vision, scanning the crowd outside, before flipping it off again before he gave himself a migraine. He looks over at her, and she seems slightly confused, eyes narrowed and finger tapping her cheek thoughtfully where it rests in her hand.

He tries not to let himself tense up in confusion. What was her problem?

“Tell me Mister Ibn-La’Ahad.” She leans effortlessly back, crossing her arms in a way that was probably practiced in front of a mirror. She’s looking at him very closely, and Desmond bristles slightly, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. He’s already regretting coming. “Have you ever been tested for the mutant gene?”

What?  
“The what?” He bursts out, truly not expecting that.

“The x-gene. The mutant gene. The thing that makes peoples shoot lasers out of their eyes.” She elaborates, wearily, as if he’s stupid. _Uncalled for._ “Have you ever been _tested?_ ”

“Yes.” He adds, his face growing hot. He’s not liking the line of questioning for reasons he can’t place, and is growing slightly more nervous as the conversation goes on. “Of course I did; when I was twelve. Everyone in the-“ He stops himself with a click of his teeth. Frost smiles enigmatically, and he soldiers on, with gritted teeth.

“Everyone did.” That’s it. Meeting over.” I’m also a Pisces, and I like long walks on the beach. Now, if you don’t want to talk about business, then I can take my money and leave.” Desmond says firmly, finishing his drink pointedly, and starting to push his chair out.

“No, no! Stay.” Miss Frost says with a small, sly smile, and Desmond finds himself sitting back down.  
Grudgingly, but he sits. 

Had he meant to sit?

“Yes, of course we have business.” Frost is examining her nails, while her companion sits still as a statue in the warm light of the café. Desmond see’s a girl across the store look at them, and feels a small tremor of disquiet when her eyes slide right over him without even stopping. _What the hell?_ ” There’s a school in Salem-“

_’Salem Massachusetts?’_ Connor asks in interest, and Frost stops like she’s been pinched.

Desmond waits for her to continue.  
Which she doesn’t.

She’s staring at him in confusion, and he starts to eye the exit.

 

As well as the briefcase. There was a _lot_ of money in there, honest to god, and his palms are getting itchy.

 _’Money will always be there.’_ Altair points out, and Desmond frowns in agreement. _’However this woman is far too interested; I believe it’s time to leave.’_

“My word.” Desmond looks up, and her eyes are wide in a mixture of surprise and delight. Wow. What. “You _are_ an interesting thing, aren’t you?”

Desmond pushes his chair back firmly a second time, legs scraping the floor. The air in here must be making him sleepy, because it’s like moving through molasses. “I’m _leaving_ Miss Frost. I can leave with your money, or I can leave without, but we’re done talking.”

His legs cut out from under him, and Desmond finds himself sitting and pulling his chair back in.

_What the fuck-_

“Oh, no no no.” Frost says, examining her nails carelessly. “Please. I said to _sit._ ”

Desmond tries to get up, but find he can’t seem to move his legs, although his whole body seems to be shaking with the effort. It’s terrifying to try moving his arms and not have them move, and the fear makes his heart beat jackhammer fast against his ribs. Again, _what the fuck._

 

“The Hellfire Club is always interested to meet someone with… Talent. Like yours.” She says, waving a finger at a passing barista. The barista stops and swivels on heel, eyes blank. Once again Desmond is witness to a set of eyes sliding right over him without stopping, and he’s never been so disquieted in his life.

She stops down next to Miss Frost, who smiles sweetly at her. Frost gives them her order, barely even looking at Desmond, who’s still struggling uselessly, his lungs tight as he tries to draw in anxious, panicked breaths. _’Calm down champ. Breathe- Just think.’_ Desmond tries to focus on Clay’s voice, but fails. _Christ_ he feels like an animal in a trap; was she a Templar? Assassin?

The barista leaves again, and it’s like as soon as the girl goes a few feet, she’s back to being a slouchy, sullen teenager with a dishrag in one hand, and a trashbag in the other.

Like she didn’t even remember them.

Desmond has the disturbing thought that Frost could kill right here an no one would lift a finger until he was cold on the floor.

_’She must have some device- An Apple perhaps.’_ Ezio points out, sounding about as anxious as Desmond is. Great, it’s a club.

“No, no device.” Desmond turns his angry, frightened gaze to her, but she’s simply smiling. Like she’s sharing a secret with him. “ But perhaps you could tell me what an _Apple_ is, that sounds fascinating”

 

Had he said that out loud?  
_’Did any of us say it out loud?’_ Clay interrupts, sounding baffled.

“Oh no, I don’t need you to say anything out loud.” Frost informs him, leaning back on the table. She looks at her assistant, who hands her the phone, and she starts going through it, lips pursed. “X-gene, darling. Surely you learned about it in school.”

“Of course I did.” Desmond snaps, and is amazed at how steady his voice comes out. “People who grow fins and six fingers and set things on fire with their mind.” _Very pseudo science._ He doesn’t say.

“Well.” Miss Frost gives him a small, secret smile over her phone, and snaps his picture with a shutter _cick._ “Maybe not such a pseudo science after all.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm still working on this in my spare time, but Dragon age has sort of absorbed all of my life right now. ;-; Expect more soon!

Frost waits until the girl comes back with a carry out tray of coffee mugs, steam wafting gently from the top and a blank expression plastered on her face. It’s unnerving, but Desmond’s starting to grow used to it. Or at least, be able to tell who’s being mind controlled or not by how fast their eyes track the room. He holds himself still the whole time the girl sets their tray down and accepts a couple of blank pieces of paper fro the assistant in lieu of real money, the fear making him sick and sweat trickling down his back. 

Frost simply checks her phone as the assistant gets the coffee, picking up the case and giving a nod to her boss. Her face isn’t blank, like the baristas- Just indifferent. Now that he’s paying more attention, he can see the faint red glow around her hands, _hopefully_ simply caused by his eagle vision, and tries not to shiver uncertainly.

“Alright my dear- Time to go.”

_’I am beginning to suspect there is no money in that case.’_ Ezio mutters irritably, as Desmond’s legs move by themselves. He gets up, and it’s scary how un-mechanical the motions are. He’s doing it by himself, but with no conscious decision to do it. And no way of stopping, as his feet carry him after Frost, and through the crowded café tables and out into the glittering midday sunshine of the city.

 

Construction efforts still line the streets, scaffolding and open masonry that the commuters and foot traffic simply weave around as they would and other obstruction. Desmond had definitely been enjoying the uptick in handholds and rope line draped over the cityscape- When you were running from some Abstergo security guards on the roof of a twenty story bank, it was nice when your leap of faith ended in your gloved hand smoking down a rope to slow your fall, rather than loosening up as much as you could until you hit the fucking _water_ of some sort of meditative hippy garden bullshit in the corporate square.

Shaun would be holding his chest every time he came loping up the van, shaking water from his ears like an oversized dog and grinning widely. No faith.

 

But it was useless to him now as a long black car pulled up to the sidewalk, engine silent as a cats purr and long chrome glinting into Desmond’s eyes. They watered, but he couldn’t even lift a hand to swipe at them. Just a small minute twitch of his fingers.

 

(He registered the fact that Connor had been particularly silent for a while, but tried not to think on it too much. He determinedly thought of pink elephants, and Frosts shoulders remained relaxed. _Good._ )

“I have so many people who are going to be _delighted_ to speak to you my dear.” Frost says easily, still not even glancing up from her phone. Desmond caught a glimpse of his white looking face on her screen, and bitterly noted that he looked slightly scruffy and cornered. Frost hit send, and it blinked into nothing, a small green envelope filling the screen. _Great._ “We’ve been making fast progress in this part of town, as well as some of Hells Kitchen. It’s what brought you to our attention in the first place. That, and some… Common acquaintances of ours.”

“I’m sure.” Desmond replies drily, but even he knows the bravado sounds forced and weak. He can feel the doors closing in his face already, cuffs on his hands, cameras and probes and probably fucking _animus(-i? -uses? –edes??)_ once they figure it out. Abstergo probably sells the fucking blueprints to super villians in their spare time, and he will _definitely_ die before getting back in one.

He probably wouldn’t survive it any way.

 

“Mister Miles, if you please.” Frost doesn’t look up from her phone, and Desmond miserably notes that his pseudonym won’t work anymore, his legs carrying him over to the car as the assistant holds the door open. The cool ac inside washes over his legs as he puts a hand on the hood to duck himself in, internally screaming the whole way as everyone passes by on the sidewalk-

 

_’Now.’_

His muscles clench.

Desmond hasn’t been so forcibly taken over by one of the Assassins since the first days, when he was still getting nosebleeds and dreaming in different languages. It’s like a cold bucket of water through his nerves as they do the equivalent of a computer reboot, his ass in the mental-passenger seat and head spinning. Even as he feels the mental vice in his head that he knows is Frost clench down on nothing.

Sure enough as his arm jerks away from the car he feels himself get _shoved_ further to the back, and Frost make a sound like she’d been slapped, her head jerking and hair whipping around her face like she’d been struck.

Altair takes over and rolls back from the car, even as the assistant makes a grab at him, her hands glowing with sudden sullen, red light and her face twisted into a surprised snarl behind her glasses.

 

Altair kicks her hands, avoiding the bare skin, and spins around to scoop up the suitcase with one toe, knee it like a soccer player, and kick it at Frost like he’s Beckham going for the final goal.

It smashes open (empty, I fucking _knew_ it), and he pauses uncertainly as Frost stands there, her face lit up with a mild annoyance, the shining carapace of diamond receding from her face and down her arms.

It refracts off of the face of the bank like a fancy chandelier, and now people are starting to take notice, some concerned murmurings and a few surprised screams.

Her hair is mussed, and she looks _pissed._

“Break his arms, my dear.” She tells the assistant, folding her phone shut and tucking it in a pocket. Now normal fabric, and not mineral. “I don’t believe he understands the terms of his condition quite yet.”

People are starting to take action now, and in true New Yorker fashion, there’s streams of people either sprinting away as fast as they can, shopping bags loaded on their arms and stroller rattling on cracks in the sidewalks- Or the tiny beeps as people whip out their smart phones to film in a truly impressive example of New York entrepreneurship. 

Frost tries to grab his mind again, and there’s another _shove_ , as Ezio’s pushed into the limelight, his feet shifting subtly to a new stance as he avoids a grab from the assistant, bobbing and weaving on his feet like a boxer, and kicking her solidly in the side. Ezio fights like a bruiser, all big movements and solid haymakers, and it’s this that probably causes him to garner the most injuries out of all the Assassins. Altair is like a freaking gymnast, and Connor’s like an alley cat- always finding his feet, and avoiding hits like they’re magnetically repelled.

The assistant grunts as the hit lands, but there’s no other outward signs of pain as she grabs his leg, fingers clenching into claws on his jeans with a grip like iron, and that’s when Ezio learns what her mutant ability is.

As soon as her fingers find skin, his limbs grow weak and wobbly, skin turning sheet pale and a clammy sweat starting across the back of his neck and ears. It makes him almost fall on his ass, foot held comically in her grip as she tries to twist him to the ground. Where she’ll probably get her hands on his neck, and they _can’t have that._

It feels like someone just shot him with a seasickness gun, and Ezio jerks back, stumbling slightly, and then falling on his ass to avoid her as she, sure enough, tries to get ahold of his neck.

Another fumble at his mind from Frost, who seems loathe to interfere and get her hands dirty, and Connor comes up, completing the stumble back and flipping like a breakdancer. His shoulders roll across the sidewalk and feet go practically vertical as he does a full backwards somersault. He makes it to his feet, and flexes his arm, blade coming out.

The snick is incredibly satisfying, but he’s still weak from the grip, as well as faintly nauseous from the whirlwind effort of switching personalities so fast. His fingers are burning with sensation, and he feels a warm trickle of blood over his mouth as blood vessels (hopefully) in his nose burst from the effort. He’s sure his eyes are just as red. There’s the distant sounds of sirens, and he mentally makes a note of it. The response time of the NYPD has become phenomenally faster since the Invasion- Especially when it came to superhero throw downs.

Which he’s _not_ \- But he understands what with the woman turning to diamond, and the glowing red hands, how that mistake could be made.

“You’re making this much harder than it needs to be, Mister Ibn- La’Ahad- You need to stop thinking of this as imprisonment, and more of an… Employment opportunity.” He avoids another hit, and theres a flurry of motion as him and the assistant trade blows back and forth, him keeping her from getting her bare hands on him. And her, trying to keep him from either garroting her with her stupid tie, or just stick his knife wherever he can get it. Connor’s not quite sure yet. “I answer to people the same as you do, and I am bringing you with me- In one piece, or not. It doesn’t matter to me.”

She makes another slithering jab to wrest control of his mind, and for a brief moment it slips. Long enough for his bladed arm to turn and _jab,_ blade sinking deep into his thigh.

He screams, and Connor’s suddenly smothered like a candle, voice silent and Desmond’s his own again, falling backwards onto the sidewalk, leg throbbing.

The pain clears his head however, and it gives him enough time to fumble for his belt with slippery fingers as the assistant closes in, one knee slamming into his chest and hands wrapping around his throat. He feels the warm, almost burning feel of her fingers, and black creeps at the corner of his vision as they seem to drain his strength, fingers going nerveless and his breath stoppering in his throat like she’d cinched his lungs.

Luckily, he’d gotten the gas grenade out before this, and it falls from his useless hand and onto the sidewalk with a quit _pop._

 

Smoke fills the air, and that’s the last he remembers before Connor comes permanently to the front, his snarling anger driving him back like a rising tide, and Desmond goes to sleep for a while.

 

 

Connor didn’t like the New York as it was now.

It was convenient to have things like the subway, long metal trolleys to take you wherever you wanted if you had the time, and the fortitude to brave the challenges you could run into in the subterranean culture that was… colorful. To say the least.  
He also liked delis, and the buskers. He enjoyed the bagels with bits of cured salmon immensely, and sheepishly had to explain to Desmond why his breath was so strong even after two days of brushing and swishing concoctions in his mouth.

But what he did _not_ like was the lack of privacy.

He knew now that the small squares pointed at him were cameras, and he disliked the idea that his image would soon be on the internet for anybody to look at, to study. An assassin was supposed to be a shadow in the night, a face in the crowd.

_Not_ , he thought bitterly, a youtube sensation.

 

He was currently sliding over the hood of the car, having finally gotten a good blow in to the woman with the tortoiseshell glasses, the lenses cracking and flying off of her face, and his hasty, but stuttering, retreat was owing mostly to the fact that the glow had suddenly surged to cover her arms to the elbows, face twisted into a scowl as she stalked around the car towards him.

He was vengeful, not stupid.

He was in the street now, but easily sidestepped the screeching blare of a taxi, eyes remaining fixed on the murderous advance of the woman whenever he looked over his shoulder.

 

They couldn’t keep this up. The only reason he’d lasted so long was a combination of the element of surprise, as well as the reluctance of Miss Frost to permanently damage him. However he could tell the assistant was rapidly losing interest in keeping him in one piece, as proven by the bruises wringing his throat and wrist.

_’Wrap this up mio fratello. The authorities are on their way-‘_

_’I know.’_ Connor says irritably, and manages to ignore Ezio in time to avoid a roundhouse kick from the assistant, ducking, and sliding to avoid another swipe, blade flicking out and drawing a red line across the woman’s suit and through her side like a striking snake. He rolls to avoid her enraged punch, and comes up again to lick across her sleeve, her arm coming up just in time to protect her eyes.

He’s not fast enough to retreat this time, and he staggers at the sapping strength of the blow that catches him across the jaw, sending him tumbling back onto the hood of a car, head spinning.

_’Shit, just let one of us take over man-‘_

“I am best suited for this- Altair is too timid, and Ezio too bold.” Connor says stubbornly, staggering back to his feet, and taking off at a sprint down the road, closely pursued by the woman. He barely makes it half a block before she catches up, but at least he’s hopefully out of Frosts range.  
“I have a plan- Just give me time.”

_’Time is something we lack, my friend.’_ Altair points out, but Connor ignores him in favor of throwing down his last smoke bomb, inky blackness that his eagle vision easily cuts through filling the street and covering his retreat. Finally, he loses the woman around the corner, thanking any spirits who are listening for the folly of the confident- But sure enough as Connor reaches the end of the street, a blue car screeches to a stop, lights flashing on the hood.

He skids to a stop, panting desperately and limbs trembling as the men in uniform get out of the car, guns pointed at him.

“Drop the knife! On the ground!”

 

_’Is this part of the plan?’_

_She is no longer following us, is she?’_ Conor points out, and sure enough as he gives a quick look over his shoulder, he sees nobody behind him.  
He might have glimpsed a black, sleek vehicle joining the traffic in the street- But it might also have been his imagination.

“I’m not going to repeat myself!” Yells one of the men, and Connor turns to give him a disparaging look. “On the ground, or I’ll fucking shoot you!”

_’Desmond informs us that the NYPD do not take kindly to incendiary devices being released in public venues.’_ Ezio offers, sounding pleasantly puzzled.

“It was simply smoke and flash- Impossible to harm anyone.” Connor says out loud, but the clicks of the officers guns stops him, wavering on his feet uncertainly. Should he run? He’s unsure if he can

His decision is made for him, however. As a giant red and gold monstrosity descends form the sky in a roar of engines, startling both him and the police officers enough for them to scatter apart.

_“Easy gentlemen- I have this one.”_ Says the metal man, and-

 

Desmond comes back to the forefront with another rush of blood from his nose, eyes clenching shut, and then opening as he staggers back to his feet.

And looks straight at the glowing blue visor of Iron Man.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a brief moment of your time.
> 
> I never posted any kind of fanfiction or art online before, but the reception I received for this was more than I ever could have imagined, and has encouraged me to do a lot more in the fan communities I've been lurking in. I can't think you guys enough for all the comments and kudos, and every note that I read and grin at.
> 
> That being said, this was honestly a rush job from the beginning and I'm sure it shows. I've been slowly editing it as I write new things, but it's slow going! Especially with other projects I'm working on. But I wanted to give you guys the quality that you deserve, which was not the quality I was writing at when I started! It won't change much of anything plotwise, but hopefully any new readers would enjoy it. I think I have a good few chapters left in me, but it's been a huge uphill battle to get even this chapter out. OTL
> 
> Thanks so much guys! You all mean so much! And if you're interested, my new videogame/fandom/ fanfiction blog where I'll be posting updates will be clandestineclairvoyant on tumblr.

#####

 

 

Clint has seen people fight all over the world.

 

He’s seen Natasha, both in action and on video footage for close to two years leading to their meet up; A deadly concerto of limbs and sharpness, beguiling in her lethality. When he finally cornered her in a dirty Budapest alleyway, bleeding heavily from his thigh and using his snapped bow as a crutch, all he could see was her red hair, unravelling from under her scarf and sticking to her sweaty face, eyes wide and green and startled.

 

And then he got to see her fight up close, and they’d been inseparable ever since. The broken ribs had healed, but his dignity had never quite recovered.

 

He’s seen Cap, a mishmash of boxing techniques and back alley scrimmages, a strange amalgamation of judo evolved out of necessity rather than out of any sort of formal training, although he can tell that some training came _eventually._ Probably from the Allied forces, when they finally caught up to the errant captain and his commandos ranging the Italian countryside and kicking nazi ass. It pleases him to no end that when he borrows some pages from Natasha’s book and keeps out of his range, he can do some

Even Bruce, when cornered, will put up a fight with fists and krav-maga, trying to keep people off of him with a guilty grimace, until he finally explodes outward in an air clap of green and roaring. Clint was always there after with a bottle of water and a blow by blow recount that probably wasn’t much appreciated, if the pale look and sudden need to lie down was anything to go by.

Whatever; The guy threw a semi truck into a giant robot, and if he didn’t get a massive boner from how awesome that was, it was his own damn fault.

Coulson was a fucking force of nature. he could kill you with anything he found in a glovebox, SHIELD agent guarantee. Or at least, that's what he told anybody who'd hold still long enough, or any baby agent that didn't look properly in awe. The disbelieving looks and noises weren't discouraging at all. More badass for him.

 

But Clint hasn’t quite seen anything like this.

 

It’s not that the guy is particularly skilled, which he is. Clint puts him up there with maybe the Calvary. Or Coulson. Strong hand to hand combat, and he definitely made use of his environment, which not everyone was fast thinking enough to do. Clint watched in interest as Tony finally grew exasperated and threw a few repulsor blasts- At low power, obviously. But Clint knew even that much was enough to break a rib or two. Intimately. 

But Altair nimbly avoided it with a swing and a miss, slithering under a car, and using it as a jumping board when Tony picked it up to get ahold of a balcony. He was knocked off two seconds later as soon as he got a leg over, when the railing smashed with a repulsor blast, but Clint was impressed.

 

“We’re getting this on tape right? It’s youtube gold.” He murmured softly into his mouth piece, watching as fucking _Iron Man_ failed to apprehend a straight vanilla _human._ It’s gratifying, to say the least. As someone who has handed Tony Starks ass to him on a daily basis, sometimes in the hallway, sometimes on the mat, it’s always good to see other people happy to put the billionaire in his place. Him and Natasha couldn’t be _everywhere._

 

The perp, Altair according to their intel, (although everyone knows it’s fake) fought like a multitude of people. Clint could see what Natasha meant, when she said it was like he was sleepwalking.  
One minute he was dodging heavy sledgehammer punches from Iron-man’s armor, moving like a circus act and rolling without any sort of care across broken glass and chipped asphalt; And the next he was leaping to his feet as easy as any breakdancer or karate master, punching out with his bad hand and blade strapped to his wrist, sparks flying up where it scraped uselessly off of Tony’s titanium adamantium alloy.

To Tony’s credit, they wanted the guy _alive_ , so it was hard for him to pop off a small rocket like he would any terror organization or human trafficking ring. He kept pulling punches, and although his face was hidden from view, Clint could read the frustration in the set of his shoulders, and how sloppy he started to get as time went on, trying to just _land a hit._

_”Alright, I’m getting a little embarrassed here.”_ Tony huffed out, as he spun to catch a blade in one gauntlet, and wrench it to the side. Altair rolled with it, spinning impossibly with his wrist to keep it from cracking like fine china, and in the same motion wrapping his legs around Iron Man’s immovable arm, and aiming another blow at the join of neck and shoulder. _“Hawkeye, any time now would be nice.”_ There’s a brief blur of static as the knife connects with the neck join again, and Tony made a small noise of annoyance. _“The kids are watching you know.”_

Clint knows- Coulson had been swearing flatly and steadily in the comm for a good half hour as he reads the twitter feed, until Clint had finally turned it off.

Tony shook the guy off, and threw him into a car. The door dented, and Clint winced.

“Well, Mommy’s going to have to put up with it until Daddy can get a clear shot.” Hawkeye quietly replied, his bowstring lighting a soft touch against his cheek as it drew by his face. He’s used to this; Sitting entirely still, eyes focussed on a scene far away. Waiting for the right moment. In truth, sometimes he feels like that’s all he is, the heart of him.

Watching and waiting.

_”I’m going to get you a clear shot, and ignore that whole mommy daddy line of conversation for reasons I’m sure you’ll agree with me on.”_

“That would be great honey. When you have time.” Clint didn't twitch a muscle when he replied, unmoving.

 

_**”Damn it Barton.”**_

 

Clint hummed in agreement, watching as Stark shook off his deadly burr, and managed to put some distance between them with a well timed concussive burst from his repulsor, spooking the perp like a startled animal. Clint can see the way his thighs tense, the way his chest is moving under his ratty jacket that he’s heaving for breath; He’s going to run.

 

He doesn’t give him the chance.

 

He let’s the arrow go, and it hit right in between the scruffy and worn shoes without hitting him, the canister built in the tip releasing it’s puff of anesthetic with a small _crack-pfaff_ that Clint could hear all the way from his perch.

The wind was strong, but as Altair reared back in alarm, Clint saw it catch his face, and the way he was breathing hard from his acrobatics gave him a good lung full.

 

And then he makes a break for it.

 

Iron man doesn’t make a move, just makes a scathing noise in his com.

 

_”This is below my pay grade- Why am I here again?”_ He waved cheerfully at someone in a second floor window who’s taking pictures with their phone, and turned to the cops, no doubt opening a line in their CB’s for Coulson to talk to.

“Because Thor is off world, Natasha is in Tokyo, and Bruce would crush the perp like a tiny bug.”

 

_“I’m beginning to grow tempted.”_

 

“Try to contain yourself until Coulson gets a whack at him- He’s been following leads on these guys, whoever they are, for like. Ten years. It’s real conspiracy theory stuff, even for him.” Clint said conversationally, as he jammed an arrow in between two ac units, and then clipped it to his bow. He flipped his legs over the edge of the building and rappelled down, gloved hands keeping his pace on the line while the tiny engine combined with the generator built into his uniform whirred gently. “Secret governments, assassinations, ancient cults-“

_”All in a days work. And I **do** love to put a smile on his face. Need me to back you up?”_

“Nah. Pose pretty for some pictures and smooth things over with the cops. It’s all clean up from here.” Clint set boots on the ground and unclipped himself, taking in the alley, and starting where he’d tracked Altair’s movement to. It was easy to predict, as someone grew lethargic and clumsy, where they’d head. As well as a couple of small drops of blood, tiny pinpricks that Clint's eyes picked up easily against the gray concrete.

 _”Alright. But **you’re** dragging the body mister- No, officer, I wasn’t talking to you, christ-“_ There’s a lack of muffled static that tells Clint Tony’s turned his attention elsewhere. Which is probably for the better- The millionaire had barely agreed to help SHIELD in the first place.  
Mostly because he’d been pretty irritated that someone had gotten ahold of phone plans that weren’t supposed to be out until next year- As well as supposedly some files he’d been keeping on the down low, involving repulser technology.

 

He liked to think Tony knew why Natasha had been in his offices at night, besides supposedly catching someone breaking in that they’d tagged on the “person’s of interest” list. But they politely didn’t say anything to each other about it over breakfast, and turned their energies in being passive aggressive to new levels of sarcasm.

 

Clint clicked the volume off, prowling down around the computer store, and behind the pawn shop, noting the lack of rats, and the garbage can on it’s side. If someone came back here for their impending nap, then they would have been clumsy, scattering the rats. Perfect.  
He’s already planning his smug retelling to Natasha, including embellishments and blatant _lies._

 

_”Shit. Shit shit shit-_ Hey, Desmond, wakey wakey, c’mon…”

 

There’s muffled groan, and what sounds like slapping sounds.

“Nope, wake up buddy, we have to get you to the car-“

Clint did a quick peek around the corner, trusting whoever it is to be busy enough with their friend to not be looking up.

A woman with short dark hair was holding Altair- ‘ _Desmond’, apparently_ \- up with an arm thrown over her shoulders, her face pinched with worry and some blood smeared across her front where the guy’s face was gushing.

_”Christ. Someone has some medical issues.”_ Clint observed grimly, restringing his bow from it’s former use as climbing gear. He had one more tranq arrow ready, but unfortunately he was reluctant to use it. They cause more medical problems than was really good, and the woman looked a little on the small side. As well as the stupid things were apparently pretty costly to R and D, and he maybe got two every mission.

_’But they can give me like, twenty smoke bomb arrows.’_ He sniffed a little irritably, before rounding the corner.

 

“Hands up.”

 

The woman looked up, and Clint knew a look of desperation when he saw one. Her eyes were wide, startled. But there was a gun in her hand down by her thigh, and a draw between her eyebrows that said she wasn’t going to let her accomplice be taken in without a fight.

_’Personal attachment.’_ He noted drily, while Desmond seemed to stir slightly, pushing clumsily at the woman and trying to get his feet under him.

“I wouldn’t bother buddy. You’re going to be out in about five seconds, so you might as well- Whoops. There he goes.” Desmond’s knees buckled, and the woman suddenly dipped under the extra weight, making a startled grunt. Clint took the opportunity to release his arrow, knocking the gun out of her hand and probably breaking her trigger finger if the yelp of pain was anything to go by. “Theeere we go, out like a light. Now, put your hands on your head.”

“Why, so you can drag us to some dark guantanamo bay bullshit prison where we can get the waterboard special? I don’t think so asshole.” The woman snapped, bristling like an angry stormcloud, crouching down over her unconscious companion and glaring. She put a hand down to his neck, checking his pulse, and wiping some of the blood away from his face with the other hand.

“We’re not that kind of organization. Probably.” He allowed, thinking of the levels of access he was missing. “Listen, I really don’t want to shoot you, you seem like a really nice lady-“

“Stick it up your chimney fuck-face.”

 

“Alright.” Clint drew his bow back and aimed for something non-lethal-

 

But just as he went to let go, in the one second he picked right shoulder, he heard the screech of tires and what sounded like a trashcan being disintegrated.

He turned like a startled cat and jumped to the side, rolling with the fall as a van slammed into two more trashcans, scraped the brick wall of the alley, and hit a dumpster with an almighty _crash-_ Before slamming right into him and sending Clint flying into a wall, his head slamming back and lights flashing in the black of his vision. He wasn’t a stranger to knocks to the head- Half of his uniforms involved some kind of helmet. Unless of course, they were urban missions like this. Clint could generally argue that the limit to his vision wasn’t worth safety when the risk of him falling off of something was practically nil. 

_’Oh, but you jump off so many things agent Barton!’_ They’d argue, words floating meaninglessly over Clint’ head while he tried to negotiate at least twice as many explosive arrows.

 

Embarrassingly, this was the last thought he had before he passed out.

Tony was going to have a _fit._

 

######

 

He woke up to a large amount of swearing in korean.

_”Goddamn british piece of shit, I’m going to find out where he lives, and I’m going to rip his toenails out and feed them to him. And when I’m done with that? Teeth. Something with the teeth. I’ll figure it out when I get there, I’m going to bring some pliers, a bottle of whiskey and a box of chocolates, and we’re going to fucking **tango.** ”_

His korean was a little rusty, but he was pretty sure of the torture scenarios. They were very colorful.

Clint made a small croaking noise and tried to sit up, the familiar feel of an IV drip and a massive amount of gauze wrapped round his head. There was a crash of metal, and what sounded like a whole pack of dogs started barking somewhere close by.

“Lay back down you fucking idiot, you have a concussion.” A small hand pressed on his chest, and the familiar smell of antiseptic and latex made Clint obey without asking, used to waking up in medical with no idea how he got there.

As he laid down and made eye contact with a small cat poster on the wall however, he realized he may not be in SHIELD medical.

 

He sat back up, much faster this time and with a small cascade of medical debris off of his legs and chest. He ignored the dizziness in his head, getting up and trying to keep from falling over. Or throwing up. “Where the fuck am I.”

“Friendly Fur animal clinic.” The woman said grimly, looking faintly homicidal as she snapped her gloves off, and threw them in the trash. “I’ve been black market for twelve years and those fucks drop a government spook on my doorstep without so much as a _’Sorry for the trouble Seung, we really appreciate it Seung’_. My whole business down the shitter and that british fuck gave me five hundred bucks. _Five hundred bucks.”_ She glared at Clint furiously, as if incensed by his presence alone. Her black hair was in a messy bob, multiple pens stuck through it, and it gave her a slightly manic look over the top of her silver glasses.

“Um.” He looks down at his gear, frowning. Most everything was still on him, and the rest was piled in the corner of the office, looking very out of place against the little fun prints of kittens and goldfish on the walls. His comm was even still in his ear, although the thought of turning it on so it could crackle into his splitting head wasn’t on the top of his list of priorities.“…Who are you?”

 

“Doctor Kim Seung. And who are _you?_ CIA? No, I bet you’re a fucking fed, you smell like one.” She wrinkled her nose, and then grabbed his arm, inspecting it closely, and startling him into straining backwards like a reluctant animal. He was really starting to question this woman’s medical acuity. “Yep. Definitely a fed, they don’t give CIA this shit. You're lucky I take my oaths seriously or I would've let you sleep outside and get knifed by a hobo. Fucking _feds._ ”

Clint looked down and realized the reason why SHIELD hadn’t activate this subdermal tracker and burst in, guns blazing, was the small jumble of wires and half-assed circuity stuck with duct tape around his arm, right over where the almost invisible scar line of his tracker was. He picked at it and got a nail under, ripping it up with a wince as it brought up what felt like half of his arm hair with it.

_’Natasha may have been right about wearing sleeves.’_ He admits reluctantly, rubbing the reddened patch of skin. He flips his comm on, and is immediately struck with a barrage of noise. _'And the helmet. She can **never** know.'_

 

“Clint, report in." There was a clatter of keys, and a small chime of an alert going off. "Agent Barton, what’s you situation- Agent Macy, can you get me those satellite pictures _yesterday_ , please and thank you- Somebody get Fury on the line and tell him to _stop calling me-_ “

 

“Barton reporting in.” He said into his comm, ignoring the glowering from Dr Seung. It appeared to be her default state anyway. There was a beat of silence, and then Coulson’s voice coming in clear across the line, no doubt the rest of the noise from baby agents quelled with a simple hand gesture. _’Hot.’_ Clint thought with a small grin, getting cautiously to his feet and collecting his gear from the corner. It was all mostly unscathed, although his bow was scraped all to hell, and two of his arrows were snapped. Confusingly, one of his gloves were missing.

 

“Do you care to explain why the last location we have you in is a bloodstained alleyway, and now we have you at…. An animal clinic in Soho?”

 

“Accomplices.” Clint explained, pulling a face in embarrassment. “Uh. They hit me with a truck.”

 

There's a long moment of cold silence, and Clint tried not to look like he's being chewed out. And probably failing, judging from the smirk that the asshole doctor was sending his way. “Is that supposed to be an excuse Agent Barton?”

“… No?”

“It better not be, because if you think for _one second_ I’m letting this gross underestimation of a hostile target go by without disciplinary action, you’re sorely mistaken. You and Stark both.”

 

“Can you even punish Stark?” Clint asked, not a little sulkily.

 

“I know someone who _can._ ”

He let that terrifying thought settle for a moment, before letting out a heavy sigh. “Glad you’re ok Barton.” There was a flurry of clicks on the other line. “I’m sending a car to pick you up. And bring your friend.”

Clint looked up at Seung and tried not to look too cowed, clicking his com off.

“Cancel your appointments for today." She gave him a suspicious look, and Clint didn't miss the quick flick of her eyes towards the medical cabinet. "Relax. We’re just going for a little ride. Those people who brought me in have been giving us the slip for a while. And there's something in it for you if you can help us find out where they're holed up.” He raised an eyebrow meaningfully at her. Shield wasn't FBI. They didn't let good sources like this go to waste. And hell, any underground doctor that's been practicing this long was someone who knew how to avoid attention. And how other people pulled it off as well.

 

“Yeah. I fucking bet.” But she heaved out a sigh like it was only what she expected, and followed Clint as he led the way to the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seung again! Why does shitty things always happen to Desmond in alleys.

**Author's Note:**

> Only the second fanfiction I've ever written, and a needlessly complicated one at that. Comments and critiques are welcome! I have no idea what I'm doing. Suggestions and requests also open.


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